Monday, May 2, 2016

A Future Retail Gateway to Olean

Imagine my surprise to learn of brand new additional stores and restaurants are soon to begin as part of the future Olean gateway shopping complex. I honestly had no idea about this plan until this morning! Although no retail-based companies have committed to the project that I'm aware of, I was pleasantly surprised to have learned about this new development, pun intended. 

The land that is soon to be developed was previously an AGWAY chemical plant. State and city officials along with the help of others, have spent nearly the last ten years cleaning up the once abandoned site. The site (highlighted in the yellow circle) is actually in a prime location by having almost immediate access to I-86 as you can see below.


Credit to Google Earth for satellite view of the site.
The site planned to be built in phases with a hotel and some smaller retail building first on the east side of the property. Although I would love to see Target open up here, the big box space reserved is much to small for their standards.


Development plans courtesy of Loopnet
I'll be watching to see what happens here in the future! I leave you with a picture of what it looks like currently:


5 comments:

  1. Cool news! I can't see the square footage on that building, but it looks pretty big. A Target does seem like it would be a good anchor for a center like this.

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    1. The largest building is 82,500 sq. ft. That is unfortunately too small for Target standards.

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    2. Yep, I'll concur. That's too bad.

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  2. Olean seems like it would be large enough to support a Target. Jamestown, NY is a decent sized town and they don't even have a Target either (there are towns smaller than Jamestown that have Targets). I don't understand why Target doesn't seem to have any interest in Southwestern NY, unless they still feel it's too sparsely populated for them.

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    1. I actually have to respectfully disagree with you here. Not because of personal preferences, but because of facts. Olean gets people from as far away as Coudersport, PA which is a distance of 37 miles.

      Batavia, which has a Target store, has a population of around 6,000. (according to Wikipedia)Olean has a population of around 15,000 with the additional 'out of towners' coming in to support the area. Even if Target doesn't open in this particular development, there still is a chance it could on land on W State St where an old hospital once stood.

      Although I agree with you that Jamestown should have a Target store, there really isn't anywhere to put one in the area. Most land in the retail hub west of town by the mall is already filled. The only way Target could even open a store in the area is if Sears or Kmart closed. Kohl's even opened in Olean, much to the dismay of many in Jamestown, back in 2012. Jamestown does not have a Kohl's.

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