Town says Lowe's price is too high.

• Author: Speizer, Irwin
• Position: Tar Heel Tattler - Brief Article

When Roxboro Mayor Steve Joyner has a big project around the house, he drives a half-hour to Durham to shop at Lowe's. So when the Mooresville-based retailer said it wanted to build a store in Roxboro, he was thrilled.

But to borrow a line from B.B. King, the thrill is gone. Lowe's wanted $167,500 from the city to pay for the demolition of a factory on the site it optioned. Things got messy. At one City Council meeting, merchants berated officials for thinking about spending tax money to lure competition that likely would run some of them out of business. The council unanimously nixed the incentive in late August, leaving Lowe's to ponder whether to proceed.

Lowe's spokeswoman Jennifer Smith declined to discuss the Roxboro project, though she says that the company uses 400 factors to evaluate sites. She wouldn't say how often the company asks for or gets incentives for new stores.

"Lowe's is a corporation that had $31 billion in sales last year," says Dennis Rondinelli, a management professor at UNC Chapel Hill. "The company's real-estate arm has...