Office Depot

[Rod Nixon <rodnixon@turbonet.com>]

I too was dumbfounded by the decision of Office Depot to occupy the
former Ernst site. Of all the business that we need in this city, that
is the worst one, and to top it off, we already have a office supply/eq-
uipment store here in Moscow! What kind of thinking allowed this? While
I can see the two universities, Pullman-Moscow business and indivduals
shopping Staples (although we do have a downtown business already
established in the same offering), we now need TWO office supply
outlets? And we have the ones just down the road in Lewiston too. Why
didnt.the CofC and the Palouse Mall people get a business in there that
Moscow really needs? Did the building sit so long that they jumped at
the first interested party, regardless if it duplicates an already
existing business? And if one of them knocks them out of the city in
competition, there will be a empty building once again, and the owners
will once again have to find another tenat. Just not make sense at
all!!                                              To answer C> Burke's
question, I would like to see both large companies and small mom-pop
businesss here in Moscow. I work in a local grocery store and I met
people from a wide area of the Palouse, St. Joe and Orofino region that
come into town to do business and shop. Moscow-Pullman serves a service
area that although it overlaps the Spokane service impact area and
Lewistons' own, should be able to attract business and shoppers on its
own merit by offering services without having to travel to those two
cities. And more importantly, it keeps money spent that would be spent
elsewhere here in the local economey. We have a very diverse population
here--more so than other communities in that we have university staff
and students, along with farmers, loggers, townspeople, rural residents,
retirees, etc. that live here. Let's have Moscow-Pullman devolp a
business climate that meets the need for this population for the next
century. But lets not screw it up like the Office Depot-Staples
duplication and leave out a business that meets our needs..