News

LIGHTNING TOP 10: No. 6

By Bill Moss, Published: December 23, 2015

No. 6: Publix becomes public

City Attorney Sam Fritschner told the Hendersonville City Council in February about a tiny sliver of city-owned land — less than a tenth of an acre — that stood in the way of a proposed development on Greenville Highway at White Street. A grocer out of Florida needed to buy it to make the project go. The name, it turned out, was Publix, and the supermarket’s many fans went gaga. As the year closed, the project was gaining momentum and seemed to face not insurmountable hurdle to city approval. “They have given approval of the site,” Thomas Vincent, president of the development company that builds shopping centers for Publix, told the city Planning Board this month. “So we’re full-speed ahead moving toward a groundbreaking.” Subject to the city’s entry corridor requirements, the new South Market Village will bring new landscaping. Subject to the laws of nature, it will have to figure out how to control Mud Creek flooding. Subject to the law of the market, the new supermarket may well stimulate a boomlet in that part of town.