Home Depot was cut down to size this past week by the Miami-Dade County Commissioners. In a unanimous vote, the Commissioners voted to allow a Home Depot to be constructed on Biscayne Boulevard — but they denied several variances that will have the effect of reducing the size of the store Home Depot wanted. Home Depot’s Real Estate manager told the Miami Herald: “We’re trying to see if we can live with the reductions imposed. I’m not sure if we would be able to.” Neighbors in the Keystone Point and San Souci communities fought the plan, and were hoping that the Commissioners would send Home Depot back down to the community council for a rehearing, but the county supported the store but forbid outdoor sales, increased the distance of the building from local recreational areas, and refused to grant the company the right of way it sought. “I’m not celebrating,” one neighbor told the Herald. “I would have been much happier if they denied the project.” Home Depot responded to the County restrictions by saying: “Today we don’t build any smaller than 130,000 s.f.. This one was supposed to be 133,000 s.f. in total. We have to go back to the drawing board and see if we can make it work.” To which, the Chairman of the County Commissioners shot back: “Well, if they can’t build a scaled-down version, that’s too bad.”
These developers all sound so entitled. Home Depot, we feel your pain. It must be next to impossible to “go back to the drawing board” to pull out blueprints for the stores you used to build in the 1990s. And what about your Villager Hardware stores? Aren’t they one-third of the size you want to build in North Miami? Why don’t you just offer to build a 40,000 s.f. Villager store and make the neighbors happy? The residents of North Miami have found how just how flexible a big corporation can be. Even after county officials gave Home Depot an opportunity to build, the company still kept whining about the store not being exactly what they are building today. If Home Depot can’t make their cookie fit the cutter, too bad. The neighbors would rather have no store at all. Home Depot has a simple choice: scale it back or leave. In the real world, one size doesn’t fit all.
