Dec. 25, 2016 – West Bend, WI – Spent Christmas out of town at my sister’s in Franklin and wouldn’t you know it there was a Bender in the mix.
The hot topics of conversation were, “What’s happening with the new Fleet Farm? Will that ever be built?”
And…. “What’s the real story on the downtown West Bend Theatre? Are they really going to tear it down?”
One of the common points of discussion included: a lack of investors to save the theatre and move it forward and a no solid business plan.
What were the hot topics at your house?
Photo of theatre courtesy Scott Evenson.
Two hot topics–
How do we find more volunteers to support our local fire departments and rescue squads?
How can we get more of the general public aware of the opiate/heroin issue in this county and that we, as a community, need to get involved. Our county is has set a new record of the number of deaths involving drugs.
Fleet Farm may have a desirable business location, but that site is not suitable for their typical store size. The site is 3.3 acres. For comparison, Home Depot is 9.4 acres, Menards is 15.3 acres, Walmart is 15 acres. The Germantown Fleet Farm is on a 16 acre site (not all of it is usable). It really would not pay to build a new store of the same size – would still have the issue of a very limited availability of products.
Fleet Farm’s newest store that opened in 2016 (Hermantown, MN) is 183,000 square feet – that is 4.2 acres for the building alone. The site is 35 acres. 10 times the size of the current site in West Bend. However, they do own about 80 acres out at Highway Z & West Washington Street so that would be of sufficient size to build a new store.