Area Description & Update - Watertown/Fort Drum, NY

Watertown/Fort Drum Area Description

Exciting growth is happening in this Watertown/Fort Drum area market. Every night on the television news here, every weekend in the Watertown Daily Times, there is new and exciting news about this market. There are housing projects going on, the schools are becoming over-crowded, and major streets are building additional lanes to handle growing traffic demands.

This year alone, Arsenal has expanded to 7 lanes, several restaurants have been built on Arsenal St. (Ruby Tuesday’s, Starbucks, Panera Bread, TGI Friday’s, Texas Roadhouse, and a new Ponderosa), a new outdoor mall, anchored by Target has taken a stand across the street from Walmart and Sam’s Club. The new Target-anchored mall includes Bed, Bath & Beyond, Old Navy, Petco, Payless Shoes, Sally Beauty Supply, and Panera Bread.

This is, of course, in addition to, and in competition with, the Salmon Run Mall, which is in the same area, anchored by JC Penney, Sears, and Bon-Ton.

Down the block, and still on Arsenal St., is Kohl’s, which opened up last year, and K-Mart and Lowe’s also have a presence on Arsenal St. in the same area.

And what’s happened downtown from there, just about a half-mile down the road, Pizza Hut has moved uptown and has become Pizza Hut Italian Bistro, and the Salvation Army is moving, building new, in fact, half a mile uptown, as well.

But it is inevitable that the spillover of retail, restaurants, and businesses will be coming downtown on Arsenal St. It has already begun. The old Pizza Hut building has just newly opened up as a car stereo installation business, the Mustard Seed (a health food store/grocery/restaurant) had built new and opened just last year, and McDonald’s has decided to stay in this location, just half a mile from “all the action uptown,” and build a brand new, state-of-the-art McDonald’s.

All this, presumably for our soldiers and the Fort Drum expansion. And their friends and families will need a place to stay while they are waiting for the housing developments to get underway, which in some cases seems to be on hold until next spring. Therefore, a new Holiday Inn Express was just built new this year, again in the uptown area of Watertown City, and a new Hampton Inn is just being completed in Commerce Park, across the street from the Watertown Post Office, and down the block from the Days Inn.

Further, several auto dealerships have bought property and set up shop to have their further presence on Arsenal St. in Watertown City, as well.

It’s all the buzz, and the reason for Jefferson County to presently be the fastest growing county in New York State.

The schools are expanding, the roads are expanding, and businesses and opportunities are popping up all through the area.

The other area of interest would be at Rte 11 and Rte 342 in LeRay, the SuperWalmart center. This is the closest shopping for Fort Drum soldiers and their families, for savings, auto dealerships, groceries, and some retail, besides the Watertown City area.

Fort Drum presently has a population of approximately 30,000. That includes military, civilian, and military families. It was recently announced on the tv news that Fort Drum is one of the only installations in the nation that could handle another 5,000 - 6,000 soldiers and their families. Therefore, another brigade at Fort Drum, NY, is being contemplated.

Housing info: 7,000 soldiers came to this area last year, half of them with families. The ones without families (ranked E6 or under) have to live on-post. So, the ground-breaking for 92 apts on-post (1- and 2-bedroom) began 7/30/07. 1,300 more (apt) units are planned for on-post housing.

As for the approximate 3,500 remaining soldiers, there is more affordable and desirable on-post existing housing. There are also many apartment complexes planned for development in the area. Some housing developments have begun and halted, because of the high prices of the homes.

It needs to remain affordable here. Aside from the military, this is so far still a common wage labor area, and much of the working class depends on government subsidizing for food, child care, etc.

The following (off-post) apartment units are being built, re-developed, or planned at present: 352 (apt) units on Rte 342; 200 (apt) units on Outer Washington St.; 40 (apt) units in Carthage (801 housing); and 100 fully-funded (apt) units near the Seaway Plaza (new P&C/Kinney Drug Shopping Center) in Pamelia. This particular apartment complex will bring in public sewer to the area, which has been annexed by the City.

The following houses are being built or planned at present: 130 houses at $200k or more; 17 houses in Great Bend; and 300 houses built "here and there" over the last 2 years. There is also a major house development project planned, but it was recently decided that individual lots are to be sold to developers instead of a development project happening at this time.

In addition to these 7,000 soldiers, there is rumor of thousands of air force soldiers, Immigration and Border Patrol personnel, and soldiers in Europe being sent stateside permanently. Closed schools have opened to accommodate the many more military children in the area.

Further, 3,500 soldiers are scheduled to arrive in November, 2007.

My sources of infotmation have been: Watertown Daily Times, DANC, Water Pump Station, Garr Assoc., Fort Drum Public Affairs, some of my sellers, and the Internet. Please note that this information changes rapidly and often.

A Commercial Real Estate Agent’s opinion of what is needed here, based on demographics:

On the outskirts of the main areas, and in lesser-populated, but affected areas, like Pamelia, Evans Mills, Philadelphia, Rutland, Black River, Felts Mills, Great Bend and Deferiet:

- Storage Unit Facilities
- Multi-tenanted Strip Malls – more laundry and cleaners, deli shops
- (and/or convenience centers with banks, smaller grocery stores, etc.)
- More Dollar Trees. There are only two “true dollar stores” in this area, and they are the Dollar Tree in the Price Chopper shopping center on Arsenal St., and The Real Deal at the Northland Plaza at State St. and Eastern. Dollar General, Family Dollar and the 99-Cent City are not dollar stores, they are discount stores.
- Perhaps another Big Lots would do well here.
- More ethnic restaurants – but they need to be affordable. We’ve got some Chinese and one East Indian restaurant ($7 for the lunch buffet, and I never see them really busy), perhaps a good Mexican restaurant.

Advertising = Sales ...Or something close

I have to say, I advertise and market my head off. I guess I'm fortunate, I work for a company that pays for it.

But there are a lot of advertising resources out there that are also priced just right for me - they are free! And I take full advantage of them. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I honestly think there's a chance that free Internet advertising is going to be a thing of the past very soon. (I hope I'm wrong, but ...) When something is too good to be true, you know ... ?

I advertise in various newspapers, and I very rarely get a call. It's a bit discouraging. But I have had the experience of getting calls from newspaper ads months later. People have a habit of holding on to what they are interested in - sometimes for a very long time. It's almost like they don't really want the property to be available when they finally do call. Or maybe they have to get up the nerve to call. Or maybe they figure if it's for sale for so long, maybe the price went down by now. Who knows.

There is a good part about this, though - oh, yes. It generated a phone call. It didn't seem to be worth it at the time the money was spent, but it eventually generated a phone call. And that opens the door to other opportunities.

But I must say that when I post an ad through something like craigslist.org, for example, I get immediate results, if I'm going to get any at all. Maybe it's because they don't really have to talk to me. It's an email. They don't feel they're imposing, if I get to answer at my leisure(?) Am I reading too much into this? Well, they're just thoughts, I mean I need to try and analyze the nature of the buyer. After all, I'll be talking to him at some point - I hope!

So. To go on, when I do get that inquiry email, I tell all ... almost. I always try to leave something out. Something that they'll want to know. Like the price, maybe. Although that's a rather annoying thing to leave out. If it were up to me, I'd tell them everything about it right away. And wouldn't it be nice if they answered with a "Thank you, it's exactly what I'm looking for, and I'll be in touch very soon!"

Well, that's doesn't happen too much, so I try to get the "ping-pong email table" going. The more I communicate, the more likely they'll pick up the phone and communicate with me directly instead of through that cyberspace net.

So, advertising might not always equal sales, this is true. But no advertising surely equals no sales.

Until next time, comments are welcome, and questions, too!