After over 30 years on Mercer Island, the True Value hardware store is being told it will need to vacate its current location sometime in 2013.

What does this portend for the future of larger retail stores on the Island? Hardware, grocery, drug stores are retail operations that require more space, more storage area than the current, new retail space being offered by the developers. Plus, the rents they are charging are close to twice what the stores have been paying currently. Under these conditions, why would any larger retail store want to locate on Mercer Island?

If True Value has to close, residents will have to go off Island to find the tools and other hardware items they need. With our aging population, how are they going to feel about driving 10-15 miles to Bellevue to buy them? How would the lack of larger vital retail stores, such as a hardware store, affect the livability of Mercer Island?

The Mercer Island residents we have spoken to are very concerned.

What can the citizens do to halt this trend that threatens the livability of Mercer Island? Otherwise, Mercer Island’s downtown is going to be a forest of condos and apartments, and vastly reduced retail.

Flo and George Chambers