For those of you who haven’t heard yet, Houston, Texas based Garden Ridge is going to open a store in Indy in February 2008. They’re going to be headed to the old Builders Square building on Lafayette Road, next door to where the new Wal-Mart is going to open up around the same time. This is great news for the Lafayette Square area since it has been a pretty tough place for business to stick around in the past decade. (Thus why there are local tax incentives to open up there. [See PDF])

Garden Ridge is a home décor store which sounds like it is similar to Old Time Pottery and the now defunct Waccamaw/HomePlace.  The only real competition around town is Old Time Pottery which is probably 25-30 miles away and when Waccamaw/HomePlace was located in Lafayette Square mall they seemed to do a decent business from what I could tell, so my guess is that they’ll do alright.

Being a northwest-sider, I’m looking forward to the changes in the area and will be sure to check it out when I have a chance.  And boy, does that statement make it apparent that I’m getting a bit older or what?  Getting exciting over a new Wal-Mart and a home décor store?  Wow!  Utterly amazing. I’ve got to go sit down for a minute …