Costco, anyone? Columbus resident starts petition to attract popular wholesale club

To say Kevin Hubbard is a big fan of Costco could be somewhat of an understatement. After all, the southern California native grew up with the warehouse-style retailer and even remembers the original Price Club, which merged with Seattle-based Costco in 1993.

Hubbard, a bank teller who will be studying human resources this fall, moved to Columbus about six years ago and immediately knew something was missing. There was no Costco. Instead, he found Sam’s Club, Walmart’s longtime membership warehouse retailer.

“My experience with Costco has been always a positive one. They seem to be more customer service-oriented than their competitors,” he said. “One of my biggest pet peeves when I go shopping is to have a long line of customers and not have extra cashiers to help get the line down. It’s little things like that that can make a big difference and have a lasting impression on people, especially when it’s experienced repeatedly.”

(Click here to see the online petition asking Costco to consider a Columbus location)

Realizing that Columbus doesn’t have a choice when it comes to bulk goods retailers, Hubbard said he has been communicating with real-estate brokers connected to Costco, promoting the merits of the city and even forwarding Ledger-Enquirer articles in which the retailer was chosen among the top businesses that readers wished would locate here.

He has followed up on that by launching an online petition at change.org to convince Costco that now is the time to consider the Columbus market for a location. As of Thursday, there were just over 520 “signatures” on the petition. Hubbard said he knows of another Costco petition on change.org that has had about 900 people sign it.

“Despite all of the above information, despite our population and income, Costco still has not decided to pull the trigger on building a warehouse here,” Hubbard says on the petition. “Costco’s Facebook team says they know about the posts on their wall from Columbus residents who want them here. They know about the newspaper articles. What they do not know is how many residents actually want them here. It is high time they find out.”

(Costco, Kroger, Shrimp Basket? Who will it be at Midland Commons)

Several Columbus real-estate developers have privately said that Costco has been taking a hard look at the local market in recent years. As with any retailer looking to enter a city, it’s a matter of doing the research and locating near higher levels of household income in a certain radius of a prime piece of property that is available.

A major development that has just popped on the Columbus drawing board with a blank canvas is Midland Commons, which plans a mixed-use complex near the intersection of U.S. Highway and Manchester Expressway. The property’s owners are now seeking tenants to fill the variety of retail, restaurant, grocery and service businesses it will need to make the development work.

“You can probably read between the lines on this: If you’ve got the best site and they’re willing to make a commitment, there’s probably something that could be done there. But we certainly don’t have them signed up,” Marty Flournoy, one of the three investors in Midland Commons, said several weeks ago when asked if Costco is a possibility for the big-box retailer shown on a diagram of what the development supposedly will look like.

Costco has been steadily adding new locations in the United States and abroad. In its August financial report, the wholesale club said it has 741 locations worldwide, 514 of those in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, 97 in Canada, 37 in Mexico, 28 in the United Kingdom, 26 in Japan, 13 in Korea, 13 in Taiwan, nine in Australia, two in Spain, one in Iceland and one in France.

The retailer’s website lists new locations “coming soon” — September through November — in Hamamatsu, Japan; Santa Maria, Calif. (relocation); Traverse City, Mich.; East Lansing, Mich.; Lincoln, Neb.; Stoney Creek, Ontario; Woodbury, Minn.; and Central Point, Ore.

Such an announcement would be warmly welcomed by Hubbard and those now signing the Columbus petition and hoping to attract Costco’s attention. Opinions listed by the signees range from “we need something new” and “we need a choice” to simply “I love Costco!”

“One of the reasons I started the petition is there were a lot of people who wanted Costco to be here, but they didn’t have one particular place where they could go to actually say that,” said Hubbard, who would like to see thousands of people sign the online petition. “I’m hoping the petition and them being able to see exactly how many people want Costco to be here will help them move forward.”

Here’s a sampling of other petition comments:

▪ “Pllleeeeeaaasseeeee! We are a military family with 4 children. Costco has been our lifesaver at every post. We need Costco!,” says Rebekah Wasek of Columbus.

▪ “I miss having a Costco nearby,” says Terri Brewer of Phenix City. “Montgomery is too far for me to travel. Please let Costco come to Columbus.”

▪ “We need a good competitor to Wal-Mart here in Columbus,” says Melisha Schmitt of Columbus. “I’ve respected and appreciated Costco for years and have been wanting one in my hometown for just as long. I want the people in my city to have the opportunity to work for a company that actually cares about their well being. One that doesn’t skimp on their wages and takes into consideration that their employees actually have lives they have to attend to.”

▪ “So tired of not having GOOD shopping choices in Columbus — Sams is always busy with long lines and everyone I know would ditch them for Costco in a heartbeat,” says Katie Ayers of Ellerslie, Ga. “With a store in Columbus, you’d get customers from all around the area — tons of people!”

▪ “I believe Costco to be a good fit for our community,” says Ed Hostilo of Columbus. “We for the most part are an upwardly mobile city, as well as a family oriented city! This would be a major Win Win for Columbus and Costco!”

▪ “I believe that Columbus and the surrounding areas (Fort Benning, Auburn/Opelika, Phenix City, Harris County) need and deserve a warehouse club other than Sam’s,” says Karen Wiesen of the Midland area. “Costco would do a phenomenal amount of business here.”

This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 7:05 PM with the headline "Costco, anyone? Columbus resident starts petition to attract popular wholesale club."