News Roundup

Announcing Release of the Big Box Evaluator Website and Tool: The tool that helps you learn about the impacts of big box retail stores

The Orton Family Foundation
October 10, 2007
For Immediate Release

Middlebury, VT — The Orton Family Foundation enthusiastically announced its release of the Big Box Evaluator tool, designed to help communities and individuals learn about the impacts of big box retail stores. The unbiased tool is designed not to take a stand on big box development, but to help citizens make informed decisions based on each community’s specific characteristics and values.

Available free to the public at www.bigboxevaluator.org, the web-based interface allows users to learn about commercial and retail development in general, but also to input specific information from their communities and receive customized reports on economics, values, planning and municpal services, and ways to improve the development process.

Citizens in communities facing proposals for big box development can select the type of town that most closely resembles their own, and the type of development proposed (neighborhood store to large “supercenter”). Users can then enter specific information and personal values in four categories (Economy, Environment, Society, and Visual), ranging from expected tax revenues to amount of signalized intersection work required, runoff mitigation requirements to the importance of community character.

The Big Box Evaluator creates a customized report for each user based on the specific inputs, with information like projected municipal costs and revenues, change in average wages, and annual price savings for family. Users are also given a list of action items based on the input values, which store developers can consider in order to help meet the community’s concerns.

The Orton Family Foundation is a Colorado- and Vermont-based operating foundation supported by profits from the Vermont Country Store.