Trader Joe's in Chattanooga? -update/correction

Shortly after the announcement that Nashville was getting a Trader Joe's, I got an email from a friendly, yet envious, fellow named Jay Craven in Chattanooga lamenting the "grocery store desert" in which he lives. I suggested he start a petition.

Well, someone named Jason Kelley did and got more than 1000 signatures in a week! It's at 1447 as of this post. I signed just a few hours ago (my folks are from there) and I was number 1362.

I think his petition will have to end up being one of the top 25 petitions for petitiononline.com tomorrow because it is climbing really freakin fast.

Keep up the good work, Jason!

(My original post credited Jay with starting the petition, but he just contacted me about it).

WE DID IT!

Trader Joe's will be opening in the former Wild Oats property in Green Hills. It's not East Nashville, but it ain't a drive to Atlanta, either. I predict East Nashville will have one approximately 2 years after the first one opens. 5th & Main developers are in the process of "wooing" them right now.

Update:
(Sorry the post disappeared for a while. I started editing it this morning and then had some internet problems — it seems that AT&T DSL and rain do not mix in our neighborhood).

My apologies for originally posting this with no attribution/sources. I got the call from Dana Kopp Franklin at the Tennessean (thank you for all your help in getting the word out Dana) yesterday when I was in my car running from one meeting to another. I took the time to stop and post the specifics but not the source.

Similarly, I left my husband a quick voicemail that included the info but not the source and in our subsequent phone tag exchanges he said, "I hope no one's playing an April Fool's joke on you." Man, that would suck.

Anyway, here are a few news items (some of the comments are fun):

On Wednesday
Nashville Business Journal: Trader Joe’s Coming to Green Hills

Tennessean: Trader Joe’s to open in Green Hills

Today
Tennessean: Green Hills Pulls in Trader Joe’s

City Paper: Trader Joe’s lands in Green Hills

And then there are some excited blog and board entries:
Chowhound

AthensSouth

Southern Beale

What has been fascinating about all this is the stone-faced, “No, we ain’t coming” treatment that some folks have gotten when they contacted Trader Joe’s versus others who would contact me all excited and say, “I just talked to someone at customer service and they say that they are going to be here soon.” I got so many conflicting reports that I just stopped posting speculation based on conversations with TJ’s Corporate.

Check out this entry from NashVeggie from just a couple a weeks ago:
Trader Joe’s Not Trading Here

I can understand, I guess. They’re a pretty secretive corporation and they don’t want some Whole Foods flunky to be able to call and get an update. What that has taught me, however, is just to keep being persistent and not take no for answer.

In that vein, I’d like to announce that I will be switching the focus of this blog to bringing Trader Joe’s to EAST NASHVILLE. Now that they are establishing themselves in Nashville, it raises the likelihood of getting one in this neck of the woods (I never really thought we’d get the first one). They don’t usually just open one store and stop.

I suppose it’s likely that they’ll open in yet another suburban part of town first (interestingly my husband and I both independently came up with Hendersonville as a possibility given all the development happening there). But we’ll see. They took advantage of an opening at a great location in Green Hills (other than the parking) and I hope that the forthcoming availability of 5th and Main will provide that same incentive.

Thank you to everyone who signed the original petition. A new one for East Nashville will be up in the near future as will changes to this blog.

Beat Austin? Check. What's the Next Move?

While I will feel a little more confident when the lead is more significant, WE DID IT. We have replaced Austin as the current online petition with the most signatures (as far as I can tell). So, what’s the next move? In the words of another TJ’s fan that contacted me last week, “Is there a great plan behind this?”

I don't have a grand plan, but I do have some ideas for next steps. I think we need to find some folks with commercial property for sale or lease that would be a good fit in terms of location and square footage and we need to get them involved in the process of “wooing” Trader Joe’s (that’s the company's language for it). Additionally, we need to make connections with individuals in the commercial real estate business to do some research on locations and demographics and contact the company with suggestions.

While I appreciate people throwing out potential locations, what we really need is for a few individuals to take action and contact the owner(s) of the locations that you think would be a good fit.

I also think that we need to use the petition to leverage local decision makers (elected officials, chamber of commerce, etc.) to reach out to Trader Joe's as well. If we can get some business folks and some politicians working on it, I think it will be a nice complement to the more grassroots people power approach.

Anyone want to join me in this phase? Send me an email. I’m not particularly connected when it comes to commercial real estate professionals or chamber folks. I could use your help!

Thanks, to everyone who helped us reach the small goal of beating Austin. With that success under our belt, let’s keep the ball rolling.

We're in the Top 25 Petitions, again!

Our petition is in the top 25 petitions at Petitions Online, again!

Also, I don't know if it means anything, but I thought it was interesting that the blog had a visitor from Germany this morning. For those who don't know, Trader Joe's is owned by The Aldi Group, which is based in Germany.

Might be nothing, but it is fun to speculate.

Nearing 2000!

Last night, I took a look at the petition and was like, "Hey, we are up to 1700. Cool."

This morning, I took a look and was like, "Whoa, we're over 1800. What happened?"

Then, I took a look at my email and my sister had written to let me know there was a screenshot of the petition on the front page of the Living section in the Tennessean. Having just gone to the website, we are also on the homepage of the online version.

[Update: As of the afternoon, it was moved to the the living section online.]

THANK YOU, TENNESSEAN!

Now, a few hours later, we are approaching 2000!

I was recently considering cancelling my subscription to save some bucks, since we get it at the office, too. You've just saved yourself at least one subscriber!

Petition Stats

200 signatures in first 12 hours
300 signatures in first 24 hours
400 signatures in 4 days
500 signatures in 5 days
600 signatures in 6 days
1000 signatures in 9 days
1200 signatures in 2 weeks
1400 signatures in 4 weeks

(update on 9/26/07)
1700 signatures in 5 weeks
(Thank you for the bump, All the Rage!)

(update on 9/29/07)
2300 signatures in 39 days
(Thank you for the bump, Tennessean!)

Woo-Hoo! 1000 signatures in 9 days!!

Nashville rocks more than I knew!

We just hit one thousand "signatures" a few minutes ago after only nine days!

I'll be calling Trader Joe's Corporate in the morning to let them know and to try to get the skinny on what they are thinking.

But we're not done yet! We still have to beat the pants off of Austin, so we're not even halfway yet. KEEP IT UP!