Living Jackson Magazine

Shopping Mecca:
Right in your own back yard
by Pamela A Keen

It started with a couple of hand-thrown pots just down the road from the interstate towards Gillsville. But now, people from miles around know Commerce as a serious shopping destination. With outlets flanking I-85, major box retailers Wal-Mart and Home Depot nearby, plus a growing and vibrant downtown, Commerce just about has it all.

Joe Craven began making pots in the 1970s near his home in Gillsville. By 1985 he had opened a retail operation at Interstate 85 and Ga. 441 at Exit 149 to sell pots, gardening items, home décor and statuary as The Pottery.

“If we don’t have it, it hasn’t been made,” said Sandy Spurlock, general manager for Craven Inc., the official name of the business. The company, with a 25-acre site, also has a nursery, greenhouses and a 550,000-square-foot store, which offers warehouse shopping. “We’ve got a lot of what you can’t find anywhere else.”

From seasonal items to hard-to-find plants and trees, The Pottery has become well-known to people throughout the Southeast. The company opened a nursery and growing rooms in the early 1990s, with 15 acres of plants grown on site and competitively priced. There’s a full-time horticultural staff of three. The retail operation employs nearly 180 in the retail operation. Another 150 or so work for the manufacturing division, which makes many of the pottery and statuary pieces that are shipped around the world. However, only about 30 or 35 percent of the company’s inventory is shipped out. The rest is purchased on site.

As a stand-alone shopping destination, The Pottery could just about fill a whole day for browsing, between the warehouse-style store and the nursery, but it’s only part of the reason people flock to Commerce.

Outlet Shopping
Tanger, one of the nation’s best known developers of outlet shopping, has more than 110 national-brand stores that line both sides of I-85. “This is one of the largest outlet centers in the state,” said Mark Valentine, general manager of Tanger in Commerce.

Tanger opened its first Commerce Center in 1989 on the south side of I-85. Located about midway between Atlanta and Greenville, the site already generated a high volume of traffic. “Having The Pottery right here was certainly a plus,” Valentine said. Over the years, Tanger’s presence has evolved.

Tanger One started out with 15 to 20 stores. “It was very successful as it expanded over time,” Valentine said. “Once we had 30 to 40 stores in Phase One, we decided to build Phase Two in 1994.” Now there are 80 stores on the north side.

With the arrival of several major box retailers, the area has continued to morph.

“Wal-Mart has changed the dynamics,” Valentine said. Home Depot opened a store a few years ago, and Goody’s Family Clothing has opened in the past year. As a result Tanger has rebranded Phase One as Tanger Town Centre, adding some retail into its outlet mix.

“Some of these stores are clearly not outlets,” he said. “This is different from a regional mall; it has become a center for the area.”

There’s even a six-screen cinema for shoppers who stay at local hotels or motels as part of their shopping experience, and locals, who for more than 40 years have had to go to Athens, Gainesville or Mall of Georgia in Buford, now see movies at home and eat in restaurants such as Outback, Longhorn, Denny’s and Starbucks—as well as Mexican, country, seafood and steak restaurants.

However, the emphasis is on the retail.

“People come here to shop; they’re not interested in a dog-and-pony show, and basically anything that keeps people from shopping is counter-productive,” Valentine said.

Downtown Commerce
Even with the growth at Interstate 85, downtown Commerce continues to draw shoppers. It has two long-standing anchor stores, Sanders Furniture and Jay’s Department Store, both family businesses. For people who frequent downtown, it’s not unusual for store employees to call shoppers by name at An Affair to Remember, Giftworks at the Joy Shoppe, Mary’s Fashion Corner or the several antique shops. The charm of downtown provides a laid-back alternative to the outlets.

“The fact is, there’s a Wal-Mart at nearly every intersection in the United states and they’re pretty much all the same,” said Pepe Cummings, president of the Jackson County Area Chamber of Commerce “It’s more personal to come into a small town, instead of trying to find things in a generic large store.”

Cummings said that out-of-towners come to shop in downtown, too. “There are any number of visitors who do get off the interstate and want a place to eat lunch with a home-town feeling.”

In the past 18 months, several eating establishments have opened in the downtown area catering to the leisurely shoppers and business people including Commerce Road Bakery and two Italian restaurants.

Downtown Commerce, part of the national Main Street program of revitalization, has fought hard and well to keep a retail identity against a backdrop of national chain stores just down the road.

Commerce Drug Company has an old-fashioned lunch counter that serves home-made milkshakes. “These are the things you just don’t find so much anymore,” Cummings said.

Revitalization of the historic downtown has added parking, streetlights and planters, creating a streetscape that’s inviting and brimming with charm.

“It all works together, the development at I-85 and the atmosphere here in downtown,” Cummings said. “People really want both – the chance to shop with many options and the opportunity to have the sense of place that we as citizens long for as modern 21st century Americans.”