Plans for a new Ingles super store at Holly Springs Plaza have caused uncertainty for the locations still doing business at the shopping center.
After Ingles informed Franklin Town Council they intend to build a new store at their Holly Springs Plaza location earlier this year, tenants of the plaza owned by the supermarket chain have been unsure whether their businesses will be allowed to stay.
Following the chain’s unveiling of plans to demolish 135,000 square feet of the shopping center, other plaza business owners have been preparing for all contingencies.
“We haven’t received any information from Ingles yet, so right now we’re still waiting,” said Win Nails owner Mary Le. “We heard from some people that work at Ingles, but really we don’t have any idea about that yet.”
For the past several months, Le has been weighing options for what she might do if Win Nails is forced to relocate. Although she would not mind moving if the grocery chain were to demolish her space, she said she would rather keep her business in a location her customers are familiar with.
“They [asked] us if we’d like to move to the Super Ingles by 441, but honestly I don’t like that area,” said Le. “If they start over and have some [space] available, then we will move back up here. I’ve been here 12 years, so I really like this area.”
While Le has been waiting to see whether Win Nails will be able to stay at Holly Springs Plaza, other tenants have been told they needed to vacate. When Ingles representatives told Smoky Mountain Toys for Tots coordinator Randy Hughes he would have to relocate his campaign’s headquarters, he was temporarily forced to keep the organization’s supply of toys in his house.
“I [had] some stuff out on my deck because I ran out of room in my house and where I had them in my carport,” said Hughes.
For a period of several weeks, Hughes was unable to find a new headquarters for Toys for Tots, at one point announcing in a Facebook post he was considering shutting the organization down. Now in the process of moving the campaign into the building formerly occupied by the P2 gun store, Hughes will have some extra room in his house. While Toys for Tots was able to find a new location despite months of uncertainty, other Holly Springs tenants are still waiting on Ingles’ plan.
“All I know is that Ingles is going to be renovating the plaza,” said Eric Olvera, owner of Papa’s Pizza To Go. “How that’s going to affect us hasn’t really been explained to us at all. We’re just waiting for a notice that they’re going to let us stay or if they’re going to kick us out.”
For most of the past year, Olvera has been aware of Ingles’ plans for the renovations.
“We first heard it from a representative from Ingles about a year ago,” he said. “We contacted them because we had heard before that they were going to tear down all the way to the corner, so we were trying to move past the corner so we could stay in the plaza. We talked to them for a couple of weeks and then they stopped responding to us. The last contact we had with them was probably in January.”
For the past several months, Olvera has been attempting to contact Ingles’ property management company, Spake Realty, trying to find out whether Papa’s will be allowed to stay. He said he doesn’t mind moving locations if Ingles needs him out of the space, but would simply like to know one way or the other.
When asked about the company’s plan for the current tenants of Holly Springs Plaza, Ingles’ chief financial officer said discussions are ongoing.
“Our redevelopment of the shopping center is in the early phases and discussion with existing tenants will occur in the future once we know the staging of the redevelopment and the availability of space,” Ron Freeman said in an email to The Franklin Press.