Frisco Leaders Hope New Amazon Store Will Lure Shoppers, Boost City Revenues
FRISCO, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - Amazon may be the online retail giant, but it still packed shoppers into "4-Star," its newest brick and mortar store in Frisco.
It's the company's sixth store in the U.S. and the only one in Texas.
Frisco city leaders are hoping the store will not only attract shoppers from all over the DFW area, but the entire region as well.
Sue Woolweaver, a Frisco resident who shops online all the time said, "I think it's great because we live close and we come a lot, so we will be here a lot."
Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney said the city welcomes Amazon's store, which fills the void left earlier this year when the Apple store suddenly closed its doors. "It's really important to the city of Frisco."
Increased shopping opportunities in neighboring cities and Apple's departure unexpectedly led to slower sales tax growth, which the city relies on to fund many services.
Cheney said, "We reduced our projected sales tax figures as a result of that so we knew very quickly we would have to replace it with a like brand and something that would be a regional draw."
Amazon's Director of Physical Stores, Drew Sheriff said they chose their newest location carefully. "We're always looking for a really vibrant retail locations Stonebriar Centre as you can see based on today it's just a great spot a lot of customers."
What may help the city is that the retailer says it will be changing some of the items in the store every week to keep customers like Deon Springfield coming back who said he sees himself coming to the store "two to three times a month and after that probably not too much because I'll probably have everything by then."
Aside from the Amazon store, the city is also betting on the new 300 room Hyatt Regency Hotel being built at the mall and Kidzania to generate money for the city as well.
