Despite nixing two Nashville-area stores, liquor giant not giving up on Tennessee

Source: Nashville Business Journal

Jacob Steimer

Dec 6, 2016

Total Wine & More, the Maryland-based booze giant, is no longer going forward with plans to set up shop in Cool Springs, according to a spokesman for the shopping center that was set to be the retailer’s home.

The retailer’s lease with Cool Springs Pointe, a shopping center just north of Cool Springs Galleria, has been terminated, according to Brandon Glenn, the spokesman.

The news comes less than a month after Nashville Post reported that the company had nixed its plans for a location in the Nashville West development off Charlotte Avenue. The two locations were set to be the company’s first in the state and the start of a 10-store expansion into Tennessee.

Edward Cooper, the booze retailer’s vice president of public affairs, said the Cool Springs lease was terminated because the city of Brentwood would not change its rules to allow the company to apply for a liquor license despite its relative proximity to three other liquor stores. The lease’s termination does not indicate, he said, that the company has nixed its Tennessee plans.

“We have not pulled up stakes in Tennessee,” Cooper said. “We’re in the process of identifying opportunities in the state.”

At the time the company announced its Cool Springs plans, it was already fighting against a bill in the Tennessee General Assembly meant to cap the number of liquor stores a company could own in the state at two. That bill passed the legislature in March.

Cooper told the Nashville Business Journal in February that the company planned to move forward in Cool Springs whether or not the bill passed.

He also said, though, that having only one store in an area doesn’t work for the company’s business model.