New Target stores planned for Kings Highway worry small businesses

June 7, 2018 By Gordon Walker Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

This Wednesday, June 29, 2016, photo shows a Target store in Hialeah, Fla. AP Photo/Alan Diaz

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Target announced on Wednesday that it plans on opening a small-format urban store in 2020 at the corner of Kings Highway and Foster Avenue in East Flatbush, Bklyner reported.

The Kings Highway store will only be 15 minutes away from another future Target location, Midwood Target, which is slated to open in 2019 at 1715 East 13th St.

Bklyner reported in 2016 that many residents and business owners were unhappy with the Midwood Target coming to the neighborhood after national chains such as TJ Maxx, Starbucks and Chipotle established stores in the area.

An employee of Shoe Obsession, near the corner of East 13th Street said, “I’m not so excited. Different type of people will come. It wouldn’t help us, there will be cheap prices. Actually, we lost a lot of customers when TJ Maxx came.”

A perfume store manager, whose shop has been around for 90 years, said Target marks the end of an era.

“It’s not about the people anymore, small businesses don’t have a future. They say there’s no monopoly in the country, but…”

Mark Schindele, senior vice president of Target Properties, believes the Kings Highway store will instead add to the Brooklyn neighborhood.

“Our Kings Highway store” will provide families and residents “with a customized shopping experience for the community – made even easier with free onsite parking,” Schindele said.

The Kings Highway store will provide approximately 100 jobs for the community and offer pickup for online Target orders, promising that more than 95 percent of such orders will be ready in less than an hour.