Throw Back Thursday. . .updated

Soccer finally makes it to Fletcher.

If you remember during the Highland Lake Golf Club kerfuffle, it came out that the Henderson County Soccer Association had an already existing lease with the Town of Fletcher to develop 48 acres of property near the ArvinMeritor plant on Rockwell Road. The agreement ended up going nowhere and the property has remained undeveloped.

Well, it looks like that may finally change:

Fletcher Town Council has agreed to sell 4 acres of land the town owns off Rockwell Drive to the developers of an indoor sports arena, financing the deal over a decade. 

Following months of negotiation between developers and town officials, council this month approved a purchase agreement that would allow SoccerZone WNC to acquire the property for $165,000 over 10 years following a six-month period of due diligence.

In December, council members had agreed to sell or lease part of a 93-acre tract the town owns near Meritor Inc. after being approached by SoccerZone WNC's partner, including local insurance agent Chuck Roper and former East Henderson High athlete Darren Brown. . .

SoccerZone WNC plans to offer two indoor turf fields and perhaps outdoor fields as well, along with an "upper deck sports bar" for parents to enjoy while watching their kids play below.

Indoor soccer will only be "about a quarter" of the business, Roper said. Developers hope to offer flag football, basketball, dodgeball, pickleball, birthday parties, sports clinics, summer camps and indoor practice space for school athletic teams. . . 

Sounds interesting.

Riddle me Publix

Rumor has it that Publix Super Markets is thinking about opening a store in the Hendersonville area. One possible site is at the (ever) crowded Greenville Highway/Spartanburg Highway intersection, where the Atha Shopping Center is now.

In North Carolina/upper South Carolina, Publix store locations are:

• Ten in the Charlotte area (includes upper South Carolina), with five more in the works (Mecklenburg/York counties 2013 estimated population - 1,230,340)
• One in the Raleigh/Durham area with one to come (Wake/Durham/Orange counties 2013 est. population - 1,402,774)
• None in the southeastern part of the state (Wilmington, Jacksonville, etc.)
• None in the mid-upper part of the state (Winston-Salem, etc.)
• Eleven stores in the Greenville/Spartanburg area (Greenville/Spartanburg/Pickens counties 2013 est. population - 885,064)
• In the process of opening one south of Asheville on Route 25 (Buncombe county 2013 est. population - 247,912)
• Henderson county 2013 est. population is 109,540.

So I'm trying to figure out their business model:

• One of the most populated areas (Research Triangle) only has one Publix. Maybe the grocery store market is already saturated there and it's hard to break in?
• Two areas of the state (mid-upper with Winston-Salem et al. and southeastern with Jacksonville and Wilmington) with many more people than Buncombe and Henderson counties have no Publix.
• I can see opening a store or two in and around the Asheville area to establish a presence in the western part of the state, but it doesn't seem as though Hendersonville by itself is really big enough to support a Publix, especially a Publix far from I-26.
• Maybe projected demographics show a large increase in the population of Henderson county? The Henderson County planning department projects for 2020 a population of 115,554, and for 2030, a population of 122,861--not a particularly massive increase, but projections are just that. Maybe Publix has additional information. 

And then there are the carcasses of abandoned grocery stores already in that area: the Food Lion right across from Atha Plaza and the old Harris Teeter close by on Spartanburg Highway. The Greenville Highway/Spartanburg Highway intersection is already packed with dueling pharmacies (Walgreens and CVS), Fresh Market and Stein Mart, numerous small businesses, and White Street acting as a cut-through from Kanuga Road. A large (and Publix are large) store there would need extensive traffic control and street reconfiguration, I would think.

Ah well, we shall see. . .