Church News .......................2C Classifieds ...........................6C Coming Events ....................4CEducation ...........................3B

Entertainment ..................3C Kid’s Page ..........................4B Opinion .............................7B Sports ................................7A

IndexWeatherMostly sunny, much cooler Highs: 60-62 Lows: 39-41

161st year, No. 134 Three sections

24 pages Subscriber services

(803) 283-1145

NewsThe LancasterLancaster County’s triweekly newspaper

SuNdAy, NOVEMbEr 3, 2013www.thelancasternews.com 75 CeNtS

EDUCATION, 3B

AJHS BASIC homework center boosts student athlete classroom scores

Friday night prep football scoresCentral 35, Andrew Jackson 0Buford 19, Indian Land 23 Lancaster 7, Rock Hill 27

SPORTS, 7A

INSIde tOdAy’S ISSue: Money saving coupons valued at more than $91

John ClarkKeith CraigOscar HiltonBobbie Jean PardueMargaret Robinson

deaths, 4A Inside, 3AStop for expired license plate nets multiple charges

PHOTOS By CHRIS SARdeLLI/GRAPHIC By LAuRA CASkey

While Lancaster County residents appreciate all of the current opportunities through restaurants and local stores, they would also like to see some additional chain businesses come to the county.

Christopher Sardellicsardelli@thelancasternews.com

am Ellis has seen the future of Lancaster County and it involves a big bowl of salad with a side of breadsticks fresh from the oven.

The culinary combination may seem like an odd choice when talking about the county’s economic devel-opment prospects, but for Ellis it’s all about offering resi-dents an increased selection of retailers and restaurants.

Specifically, the Lancaster native hopes to one day see her favorite restaurant, Olive Garden, move into the county.

“I like their fettuccine alfredo, but I love their salad and breadsticks. You can’t go there without getting all that,” Ellis said. “It’s time to have a few more places to choose

from.”Lancaster County offers numerous amenities through

its own retailers and restaurants, but residents want more.

Ellis enjoys the many individual retailers and restau-rants unique to the county, she’s also anxious to see some more national chains take root here as well.

“My favorites are Ross and TJ Maxx, where me and my daughter love to shop. It would be nice to have some-thing to compete with Walmart,” she said. “Maybe even if we got a Target, that would be good, to have more choic-es.”

Born and raised in Lancaster, Butch Moses is bursting with local pride on what Lancaster County currently of-fers and hopes one day to see more shopping choices here.

“Lancaster needs a variety of things to keep residents here,” Moses said. “Then the economy would be better and people would spend more of their money here, in-stead of driving somewhere else. We’re losing our revenue to other places.”

See RetAIL I Page 2A

Christopher Sardellicsardelli@thelancasternews.com

What began as a night of trick or treat-ing ended with the arrests of a man and his mother on infant kidnapping charges Thursday, Oct. 31.

Daquavius Wade, 20, 207 Hampton Road, was arrested for kidnapping, while Tonya Ross, 41, 325 Rutledge St., was arrested on a charge of accessory to kidnapping after the fact, according to a Lancaster Police Department press release. Ross is Wade’s mother.

The two were charged with the non-custodial parent abduction of Wade’s nine-month-old son, the release said.

Officers responded at 6:16 p.m. to the 300 block of Rutledge Street at the request of the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office to meet with deputies and the infant’s mother.

The mother told offi-cers that Wade, who is the biological father of her child, had forcibly taken her son without her permission and was refusing to re-turn him, the release said.

“(She) stated that earlier that evening, Wade had requested that she bring the child by a friend’s house so that he could see him for Trick or Treat,” said Lancaster Police Capt. Scott Grant in the release.

After bringing her child to a Louise Street home, and while still inside her car, she and Wade began arguing.

Father, grandma

charged in kidnapping

Infant taken from mother

Daquavius Wade, 20, 207 Hampton road

Tonya Ross, 41, 325 rutledge St.

See CHARGed I Page 3A

See FOOtBALL COACH I Page 3A

residents not pleased with IL school traffic plans Reece Murphy

rmurphy@thelancasternews.comINDIAN LAND – Residents and par-

ents in the area of a new Indian Land elementary school on Harrisburg Road met with school district and public of-ficials Wednesday evening, Oct. 30, at Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church to discuss their concerns with traffic and other issues.

Indian Land’s new elementary school is under construction at 10251 Harris-burg Road.

The school is scheduled to open next August for the 2014-15 school year.

About 65 people attended the meet-ing, mostly residents of the Bridge-Hampton neighborhood across from the school and neighborhoods along roads connecting to Harrisburg Road.

Among the public officials at the meeting were school district safety and transportation director Bryan Vaughn and maintenance director David Small, County Councilman Brian Carnes and Lancaster County Administrator Steve Willis.

S.C. Department of Transportation district traffic engineers Greg Shaw and Vick Edwards participated, as did Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jeff Hilton.

S.C. Rep. Deborah Long (D-45), who helped organize the event, attended, but only moderated.

“From the school district’s stand-point, we understand where you folks are coming from,” Vaughn said in opening the meeting. “We know every-body here has a vested interest in this school.

“The school board wants to be good neighbors. We don’t want to interfere with your privacy or your quiet home life,” he said. “But I know there are sev-eral issues you guys are concerned with.”

Though the at times contentious meeting included discussion of con-struction noise from the school site and a new indoor shooting range being built down the road from the school, most residents’ concerns centered on school traffic.

A two-lane road that will be widened with turn lanes 200 feet on each side of the school, Harrisburg Road runs north to Pineville, N.C., and south to Fort Mill Highway (S.C. 160) just west of Charlotte Highway (U.S. 521).

Chief among residents’ traffic con-cerns was the question of what routes parents would take after dropping off and picking up their children in attempt-ing to return to S.C. 160 and U.S. 521.

With no left turn onto S.C. 160 to ac-cess U.S. 521 from Harrisburg, resi-dents said drivers would have limited choices: Drive north to Barberville Road, drive south to the intersection with Calvin Hall Road/Elmsbrook Lane, or cut through BridgeHampton.

Ken and Carolene Ingram of Sandra Lane said so many people already use their road as a cut-through between Elmsbrook and U.S. 521 at Walmart it’s earned the nickname “Walmart Boule-vard.”

The new school, they fear, will increase the traffic.

See tRAFFIC I Page 5A

Reece Murphyrmurphy@thelancasternews.com

The father of a Lancaster High School Bruins football player was arrested Mon-day, Oct. 28, for alledgedly attacking one of his son’s football coaches at practice.

According to the Lancaster Police inci-dent report, the fight occurred when 55-year-old Derrick Cunningham went to the Lancaster High School athletics complex to speak with LHS head football coach Bennie McMurray.

The report said Cunningham wanted to talk about an alleged incident involving his son and an assistant coach that occurred during the Oct. 25 football game between the Bruins and Fort Mill High School at Lancaster County Memorial Stadium.

The report said McMurray told Cun-ningham to meet him at the school’s Rice Building in order to avoid any conflict dur-ing practice and they’d discuss the situa-tion.

When Cunningham arrived, the report said McMurray reportedly asked him to wait a moment while he helped someone else in the parking lot.

Lancaster high school

Player’s father turns himself

in for assaulting football coach

Page 2A | Sunday, November 3, 2013 • www.thelancasternews.com • The Lancaster News

asked & answeredWhat retail stores or restaurants do you

want to come to Lancaster County?

“It has to be Golden Corral. I love it, love it, love it. I love the choices you get there.”

– Wilson Faulkenberry of Lancaster

“I totally love Steak ‘n Shake and we drive there all the time for the fries. I also want a big movie theater.”

– Jennifer Knight of Lancaster

“I want a Red Lobster or Chili’s, because I enjoy their food and will drive for those.”

– Butch Moses of Heath Springs

“Love the Olive Garden because it’s good food and it’s affordable and it would last here in Lancaster.”

– Jasmere Perry of Kershaw

“A Books-A-Million, because I like to read, a Target and a Macaroni Grill.”

– Jessica Taylor of Lancaster

“In this area there’s a lot of country folks who like to fish and hunt, so maybe an Academy Sports or a Bass Pro Shops would do well.”

– Dustin McInvaille USCL student

Moses, 43, often com-mutes to Charlotte to shop at favorites stores like Macy’s or dine in eat-eries like Chili’s. Also missing, he said, is his preferred coffee shop, Dunkin’ Donuts.

“Oh man, we lost Dunkin’ Donuts and they had great coffee,” he said. “I’d love a good cup of their coffee right now, but right now you’ve got to go out of your way to get what you want.”

He hopes local leaders will find ways to make the county more attrac-tive to retailers.

“We need to keep the younger generation here. We don’t want them to go to school here and then move somewhere else,” Moses said.

As for University of South Carolina Lancaster student Dustin McIn-vaille, 18, he knows ex-actly what would keep his spending money in-side the county’s bor-ders.

“I love Buffalo Wild Wings because you can go in and watch a foot-ball or basketball game and eat some good chick-en wings,” McInvaille said. “It don’t matter where you walk in, every direction you look there’s a television and that’s a big draw for me.”

Renewed interest Following years of re-

tail stagnation caused by the slowdown in the na-tional economy and housing market, resi-dents like these are notic-ing a renewed interest in the county from retail-ers.

Several chains have be-gun popping up in Indian Land, including a Publix, Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins and Kentucky Fried Chicken, giving hope that more will fol-low.

While the central and southern portions of the county haven’t experi-enced a similar retail boom, chains such as Family Dollar and Dollar General have opened their doors and found success in those areas.

But with all this activi-ty, how does Lancaster County compare to the rest of the country in terms of successful na-tional retailers who have relocated within its bor-ders?

Pretty well, actually.According to data re-

leased by Stores maga-zine, the official maga-zine of the National Retail Federation, Lancaster County has attracted more than a third of the country’s top retailers.

Based on the maga-zine’s 2013 Top 100 Retail-ers list, an annual ranking of businesses based on sales and growth, the county has successfully snagged 34 of the top na-tional retailers.

Even more promising, Lancaster County has six of the Top 10 retailers, in-cluding Walmart, The Home Depot, Walgreen’s, CVS, Lowe’s and McDon-ald’s. Those retailers alone had sales topping $606 million within the United

States in 2012. Other retailers from the

list that are found within the county include Publix (No. 15), Subway (No. 32), Aldi (No. 38), Family Dol-lar Stores (No. 42), Tractor Supply Co. (No. 79), Chick-fil-A (No. 80), Belk (No. 89) and Sonic (No. 95).

And based on data from Nation’s Restaurant News, which ranks the nation’s foodservice industry in its own Top 100 list, major restaurants have found success here.

According to 2012 fig-ures, the county already has the top 10 largest chains based on sales, in-cluding Subway, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell and Applebee’s, and has started inroads into the fast-casual dining sector with options such as Zax-by’s.

Searching for storesSo with demand for re-

tail high and the county already showing success in the retail sector, are other major chains cast-ing their gaze upon the county?

While none of the ma-jor restaurant, retail or movie theater chains contacted for this article had any specific news of openings or interest in the county, each had their own take on how their businesses decide to lo-cate in a specific area.

One such company is Target, which has been rumored to be circling the county for years, though the company has yet to announce any plans.

Earlier this summer, Target spokeswoman An-drea Munzer McCauley said the company had no news to share about a new store coming to Lan-caster County.

She did, however, com-ment on the very specific set of criteria Target uses as it searches for poten-tial sites.

“Target is selective when choosing new store locations to ensure we make the best use of our capital from a long term perspective and build a store that is a good fit for each community,” Mc-Cauley said.

“We identify potential new store opportunities in trade areas that are un-derserved or have the po-tential for new popula-tion growth. We also ana-lyze extensive data on existing store perfor-mance, demographics, competition and market potential to identify trade areas which would be well-served by additional Target store locations.”

Though Lancaster County already has sev-eral options for clothing or department stores, many residents also won-der if a store such as Kohl’s could draw a loyal customer base here.

For now, interested shoppers may have to travel elsewhere, as the company has no plans to move here, said Julia Fen-nelly, a spokeswoman for Kohl’s Department Stores. She said her company is always considering new stores, but kept specifics to a minimum.

“Kohl’s has an ongoing real estate assessment process,” she said. “At any given time, Kohl’s is re-

viewing sites in commu-nities nationwide. We do not comment on real es-tate speculation.”

And what about major restaurant chains such as Olive Garden or Golden Corral?

Olive Garden spokes-woman Tara Gray said though the restaurant chain doesn’t yet have its eye on Lancaster County, the company is always considering additional growth.

“Olive Garden contin-ues to grow, so our real estate teams are con-stantly looking for new sites across the country, (but) we do not have any specific plans for a new location in the Lancaster area at this time,” Gray said.

Gray also remained mum on Olive Garden’s criteria for choosing new locations.

“We consider our site selection criteria to be proprietary, so I can’t provide specific details on that, however I can (say) we generally look for high-traffic, popula-tion-dense areas,” she said.

Growth catches chain’s attention

Meanwhile, Dick Chase, vice president for develop-ment with Golden Corral Corp., says the county may need to see a little more growth before it catches the chain’s attention.

He said the company al-ways keeps three figures in mind-population num-bers, high traffic counts and robust eating and drinking sales.

“I have looked at the statistics on Lancaster. Our first filter for whether a city/town has adequate eating and drinking sales is measured by the U.S. Census,” Chase said. “Lancaster is about one half of our minimum re-quirement. At this time, we do not have any de-velopment plans in Lan-caster County.”

As the county expands, many residents also won-der if its entertainment venues will grow.

Christine White, a mar-keting manager with Re-gal Entertainment Group which operates 575 the-aters in 42 states, was more hopeful about the prospects of such a chain moving to the county. Earlier this year, she gave her perspective on the movie chain’s develop-ment process.

“Regal is always look-ing for new opportunities to expand our presence throughout the country.

If a local developer has something to present to us, we are more than will-ing to discuss the oppor-tunity,” White said. “We have great locations throughout South Caro-lina and are always look-ing at ways to continue to bring Regal Entertain-ment Group to new ar-eas.”

See Wednesday’s edi-tion for Part 2 in which officials and developers discuss what they’re do-ing to attract national re-tailers to Lancaster Coun-ty.

Contact reporter Chris Sardelli at (803) 416-8416

Retail>>FROM 1A

Business ..................................6BChurch News ........................5B Classi� eds ............................7B Coming Events ....................4B

Entertainment .................. 3B Looking at Lancaster ......1B Opinion .............................7A Sports ................................5A

Lessie BelkMarie DixonSeith DouglasBud Ellis

Mary Bee QuinnMargaret RobinsonRuth � urmanCarson Wylie Sr.

Index Deaths, 4AWeatherMix of sun and clouds, seasonal Highs: 67-69 Lows: 41-43

161st year, No. 135 Two sections

16 pages Subscriber services

(803) 283-1145

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2013www.thelancasternews.com 75 CENTS

RIVALRY RENEWED: County pride on the line as Andrew Jackson hosts Yellow Jackets in opening round of Class AA high school

football playoffs I SPORTS, 5A

www.thelancasternews.com

RIVALRY RENEWED:line as Andrew Jackson hosts Yellow Jackets in opening round of Class AA high school

RIVALRY RENEWED:line as Andrew Jackson hosts Yellow Jackets in opening round of Class AA high school

NewsThe LancasterLancaster County’s triweekly newspaper

75 CENTS

County pride on the line as Andrew Jackson hosts Yellow Jackets in opening round of Class AA high school

ewew

County pride on the line as Andrew Jackson hosts Yellow Jackets in opening round of Class AA high school

ewewsssewsewewsewsBuford quarterback Scotti Moser

Volunteers quarterback Kolby Whitley

CHRIS SARDELLI/csardelli@thelancasternews.com

CHAIN REACTIONPART TWO OF TWO

National retailers keep rooftops on radar

PHOTO SUPPLIED

In 2012, Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan’s Purse, collected 6,503 shoe-box gifts in Lancaster County. Those gifts were delivered to suffering children in more than 100 countries. Some

locals had their shoe-boxes tracked and they went to children in Ghana, Kazakhstan and Honduras.

The parking lot of the former Winn Dixie/Kmart sits empty along North Main Street, almost a year after the major retailer decided not to renew its lease. The store opened there in 1992.

Christopher Sardellicsardelli@thelancasternews.com

Brandon Newton can’t help but shake his head when he drives past Lancaster’s now-abandoned Kmart building.

It’s been almost a year since the major retailer shuttered its store along North Main Street, and weeds have now supplanted cars as the most common sight within the store’s parking lot.

Newton, 19, remembers a time years ago when both Kmart and the long-gone Winn-Dixie, which anchored the thriving center, were huge draws for the county’s shoppers.

“People shopped there all the time,” Newton said. “I wish someone would do something to put something back in that block. I feel bad for Arby’s, stuck there next to it, which can only get its own traffic. It’s gotten sad to see. That parking lot with Kmart and Winn-Dixie used to be packed full of people. It was hard to get a parking space.”

The Lancaster native worries that the loss of Kmart has created a deficit in the local economy.

See RADAR I Page 2A

Brandon Newton

DENYSE CLARK/dclark@thelancasternews.com

A required safety surface with the installation of all-new playground equipment has left the Town of Heath Springs in need of $4,000 in donations to complete park upgrades.

Denyse Clarkdclark@thelancasternews.com

HEATH SPRINGS – It’s going to cost a lot more to refurbish the public park in the county’s smallest town than its officials anticipated.

Heath Springs Park was about to get some much-needed, additional equipment until town officials learned of a new equip-ment safety surface mandate that changed everything.

The town was recently awarded a $7,500 grant from the John T. Stevens Foundation in Kershaw to purchase three or four pieces of equipment for the town park, said town administrator Tony Starnes.

“We found out that now when new equip-ment is added, you also have to add a safety surface,” Starnes said. “It's going to cost about $17,000 to $18,000 for the equip-ment, the installation and the safety sur-face installation.”

Starnes said the Lancaster County Parks and Recreation has agreed to chip in $6,600 toward the project, but an additional $4,000 is still needed.

The town doesn’t collect property taxes,

HS short of funds

to upgrade town park

See TOWN PARK I Page 2A

Local Operation Christmas Child collection sites to open Nov. 18

Denyse Clarkdclark@thelancasternews.com

Each year, donations of toys, school supplies, hy-giene products and notes of encouragement are re-quested for Operation Christmas Child (OCC), touted as “the world’s largest Christmas project of its kind.”

In Lancaster County, an ambitious goal of 7,000 gift-filled shoe boxes has been set for the community to share its love with needy children around the globe during the upcoming Christmas season.

According to its website, since 1993, the Samaritan’s Purse project, Operation Christmas Child, has col-lected and delivered more than 100 million gift-filled

shoe boxes to children in more than 100 countries. As the organization celebrates its 20th anniversary

in 2013, OCC expects to collect another 9.8 million shoe box gifts.

County-wide shoe box collection sites for Operation Christmas Child will be open Nov. 18-25 at Second Baptist Church on Great Falls Highway in Lancaster, Cross-roads Lutheran Church in Indian Land and Second Baptist Church in Kershaw.

Larry Helm, relay site coordinator for Second Baptist Church in Lancaster,

See OCC I Page 8A

Page 2A | Wednesday, November 6, 2013 • www.thelancasternews.com • The Lancaster News

The Upper Palmetto Chapter of the American Red Cross, 200 Palmetto Blvd., Rock Hill, has scheduled this up-coming blood drive in Lancaster:

Red Cross announces upcoming blood drive

For details, call (803) 329-6575

u Friday, Nov. 8 – The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, 1005 Uni-versity Drive, 2 to 6:30 p.m. Call (803) 285-4095 to schedule an appointment

“My family used their pharmacy all the time and we were sad to see it go because you never want just one option for a store. It’s always good to have competition,” he said. “There’s not as big of an incentive to charge lower prices if you’re the only game in town.”

Newton has a couple favorites he’d like to see move into the empty shopping center.

“A Target would be nice for us to have something to compete with the one big-box store we have left,” he said. “If we had to get another grocery store, I’d want a Publix to come to Lancaster, so it could do well like the one in Indian Land.”

Despite wishful think-ing from residents like Newton, there are many other factors that come into play before a major retailer decides to move into a new area.

So what are some of the challenges Lancaster County is facing in at-tracting these retailers and what can be done to make the area more at-tractive?

Dean Faile, president of the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce, said it all begins with a county’s gross sales. Two years ago, the county was still ranked 22nd out of 46 counties in the state, he said.

“We are right in the middle, and places like Target and Best Buy will look at the total num-bers,” Faile said. “Gross sales are up, but on the flip side, we have low per-capita income. So there’s a focus on how to get ev-eryone gainfully em-ployed. Unless we do that, it will be a slow pro-cess to get retail.”

Equally important is the local population’s amount of disposable in-come, that money left over after residents pay their bills, as well as the number of homes within a certain radius. In devel-oper lingo, they call these “rooftops.”

“The reality is any op-portunity for getting retail like Target or Old Navy is more primed to move into the Indian Land area be-cause of the number of rooftops they draw from surrounding areas such as Union County or York County. It’s that number they (retailers) are looking for,” he said. “We can chase retail all day long, but we’re spinning our wheels because if the per-capita income or number of rooftops is not what they are looking for, it’s not going to happen.”

Other important fac-tors considered by retail-ers include consumer de-mographics, traffic pat-terns and potential drive times for customers.

“Retailers want roads to be free flowing and are attracted to busy roads with service roads on the side. (They also ask) how far away could someone live and still get to the store in 30 minutes,” he said. “The drive-time dis-tance has become more of a relevant barometer than just sticking a pin in the map.”

Faile said he would welcome the addition of more large “anchor” re-tailers here.

“If you look at Lowe’s and Walmart, when they relocate, your smaller re-tailers follow in the shad-ow of those chains,” he said.

He calls the phenome-na the “shadow effect,” which has already been seen at Indian Land’s Harris Teeter and Publix stores. Faile said many of the small business own-ers next to Publix have even cited the grocery store as their main rea-son for moving there, he said.

“They knew it would be a high traffic area and people would see them,”

Faile said. On Faile’s wish list for

major national retailers are Target and Best Buy.

“You tend to get a big-ger bang when they move in,” he said. “If we can get a Target, we won’t just build for Target, it will create an entire shopping district.”

With a slight uptick in the economy, Faile expects retail will soon follow.

“I think we’ll see retail growth in the Indian Land area over the next five years, and over the same amount of time retail growth will be low or mod-est in the Lancaster proper area, which won’t pick up until the employment rate picks up and when more manufacturing facilities continue to come online and expand here,” Faile said. “I think with the growth in Indian Land and in nearby Union County and along S.C. 160 (Fort Mill Highway), that area is starting to look more and more like a sweet spot for retail.”

Up on the rooftopsLooking at the county

from a developer’s per-spective, Skip Tuttle con-curs that major chains only move in when cer-tain criteria are met.

“It’s real simple in the retail arena. There are two things they are looking for, rooftops and traffic counts,” Tuttle said. “With the slowdown in the home building industry in the last four years, that has slowed to some degree the level of retail develop-ment. However, we’re see-ing good signs of improve-ment in that regard in the last six months.”

As owner of the Tuttle Company, which is in-volved with retail and in-dustrial or office-type de-velopments, Tuttle has specific insight into the process. His company served as project devel-oper for the City of Light property in Indian Land, as well as land develop-ment for Indian Land’s Edgewater project.

“Lancaster County, in particular Indian Land, is on the radar screen as far as retail is concerned. When Lowe’s and Wal-mart went out there, the first thing that happens in retail are the smaller shops come, such as hair-cut places, sandwich shops and doctor’s offic-es. The next step are big box retailers or what is called “junior box” retail-ers and those don’t come until there is a critical mass of population,” he said.

He predicts a large wave of big box retail will descend on the northern portion of the county within two to three years because of the quickly growing population base.

“There are 80,000 peo-ple within a five-mile ra-dius of (S.C.) 160 and (U.S.) 521, enough to support more retail,” he said. “They are also look-

ing for indications of con-tinued growth and there are plenty of indications that Indian Land is con-tinuing to grow. With that comfort level they will be more willing to invest.”

Based on his experi-ence, and his forecasts of national trends, Tuttle said retailers will begin pouring over the county line once conditions meet a favorable mix.

“The general concept is you have to have rooftops before retailers come. They’ll come when de-mand is there and that has happened and that’s why Publix moved in, they followed the rooftops; Walmart followed the rooftops. And if the roof-tops continue to increase you’ll see additional re-tailers move in,” he said.

County workforce a priority

Though his organiza-tion is solely tasked with bringing office and in-dustrial companies to the county, Lancaster County Economic Development Corp. President Keith Tunnell said he is asked daily why there aren’t more national retail op-tions here.

Tunnell admits there is no magic equation to at-tract retailers, instead be-lieving it will take a domi-no effect of smaller actions to get national retailers’ at-tention. Among those dominos which must fall are increased amenities, a retail development plan and a trained workforce.

“If you want to have a vibrant, strong economy, then a vibrant and strong retail sector is impor-tant,” Tunnell said. “Ear-lier this year the LCEDC lost a project due to the lack of a business-class hotel and the number of restaurants and retail op-portunities located in or near the city of Lancaster. There are many factors in play when a company considers Lancaster.”

Hampering efforts to attract retailers and big industries alike, he said, are those low per-capita incomes coupled with high property tax rates, Tunnell said.

“I feel strongly that with the right downtown and retail development plan, Lancaster County could be an ideal loca-tion for retail commercial business to prosper. Be-ing so close to Charlotte and with many of our cultural, historic and nat-ural resources that could be developed and with a beautiful historic down-town, I think Lancaster is a hidden gem,” he said.

He cites the “downtown reinvention” he’s seen in other counties which oc-curred through the stra-tegic use of innovative items, such as New Mar-ket tax credits, micro-loans and tax breaks for small business owners.

But for Tunnell, it all boils down to one com-

mon denominator – hav-ing a trained workforce.

“We need to continue to bring in more compa-nies that are paying good wages. There needs to be a major emphasis on training our local work-ers for these new jobs and the existing jobs we have here today,” he said. “If people aren’t working, then the payroll isn’t feeding the local econo-my and the commercial retail and housing sec-tors suffer.”

Despite these variables, Tunnell said retailers are expressing interest in the county.

“As we speak, we have five major retail commer-cial projects that are con-sidering Lancaster Coun-ty, all in Indian Land,” he said. “These projects in-volve two major retail-commercial develop-ments, a retail business that would be a service company, a major hotel and a major restaurant.”

With such high de-mand from residents and with renewed efforts by local leaders to train the workforce and attract new businesses, it no lon-ger sounds like a ques-tion of “if” but “when” some of these national retailers will make Lan-caster County their home.

So one day don’t be surprised to see Newton holding a Target bag full of items he bought down-town, instead of from a store one county over.

Contact reporter Chris Sardelli at (803) 416-8416

Radar>>FROM 1A

RETAIL REFERENCE GUIDEEver wonder what people are talking about when they say a “big-box store” is moving in or that a company is interested in the number of “roof-

tops?” Here is a quick guide:u Big Box – A large stand-alone store,

such as Target or Old Navy, with at least 20,000 square feet

u Junior boxes – Retail spaces of 15,000 or larger square feet of space.

u Mega-boxes – Retail spaces of 80,000 square feet and larger which have become less popular in the down economy. This can include warehouse-type locations such Sam’s Club or Cost-co.

u Rooftops – The number of homes in a certain radius, often used as one of the criteria for retailers to move into an area. Some chains only become inter-ested in an area once its number of rooftops hits the tens of thousands.

u Shadow effect – This is when smaller retailers, such as hair or nail sa-lons, tax preparers or dollar stores move into a shopping center once a Big Box store moves in.

– Compiled by Chris Sardelli

“As we speak, we have five major retail commercial proj-ects that are consider-ing Lancaster County, all in Indian Land.”

– Keith Tunnell Lancaster County Economic Development Corp. president