With Flushing's first BJ's Wholesale Club to open its doors on the 30th, the Chinese community is divided on whether the new influx of mainstream chain stores, such as Target, Best Buy, Marshalls, Staples, and Famous Footwear, will be a good or a bad thing for Flushing.
Wellington Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, believes that the advent of mainstream chain stores is a crucial opportunity for Flushing's development. "Local stores have already met the needs of Flushing's customer base," Chen says. "And these new stores will attract business from customers coming out from Long Island to meet their shopping needs. Such customers will only shop at mainstream stores: only when the neighborhood has an equal and non-biased commercial environment will they come to Flushing."
Fred Fu, president of the Flushing Development Center, says that mainstream stores will make Flushing feel more like an American city, rather than an exclusively Asian neighborhood. "Ever since Barnes & Noble left Flushing, the neighborhood was left with only a Macy's; the neighborhood requires more mainstream stores in order to change its image," Fu believes.
But City Councilmember Peter Koo (R-Flushing) worries that though these stores might appear to benefit Flushing by drawing more customers, they will actually be an inconvenience.
"Because Flushing's businesses and these mainstream stores draw different types of customers, those who shop at the chain stores are unlikely to patronize local businesses, as is the case with Flushing's Home Depot and the surrounding Chinese-owned hardware stores," Koo argues. "Furthermore, customers of the chain stores must pay hourly for parking, so they are unlikely to leave their cars in the parking lot with the meter ticking and walk to the commercial district. These new customers are unlikely to have any effect except to make traffic even more congested," Koo says.
Proprietors of Flushing grocery stores are divided on the benefits of BJ's entrance into the Flushing market. Wu Jianxi, manager of the Chang Jiang Supermarket, believes that it will definitely hurt local business, particularly with regard to goods that other ethnic groups regularly buy, such as paper products, diapers, powdered milk, and other household goods. Chinese markets cannot compete with big-package stores selling these products. He predicts that in the future, Chinese merchants will specialize in vegetables, fruit, and seafood where they have a comparative advantage. "As to the possibility that BJ's might offer Asian food products in bulk," Wu says. "There is nothing to do but wait, see how they do when they start business, and react accordingly."
