Welcome to Oswego and the best of luck to you and our community.

I hope he can help us get rid of Wal-Mart and replace it with whole foods or trader joes! I would also like to see healthier food options like jamba juice. Von maur or macys would be great in the old lowes building and could help bring profits to dicks sporting goods. Just getting rid of Walmart alone would be a HUGE victory for Oswego.

Our taxpayer money should be used to offer incentives for small businesses to operate in oswego instead of going to all the ogilopolys

I welcome Mr. Gadde and a fresh perspective to take a look at what can be done to increase small businesses in Oswego, create jobs and add to decent,sustainable growth. I also hope that Mr. Gadde might have ideas for a developer to take over the old lumbar yard and to fill the Lowe's space.

Oswego Resident... I'm not aware of any incentives to "ogilopolys", what are you talking about. But I do agree that when Walmart came to town it helped to kill many of our small businesses just like almost every town in America, but get rid of Walmart? Really! How about we just promote our small businesses then shop at them?

Vijay Gadde.....Don't let Oswego make you a "fall guy" for all the crap they have already ruined.
Nice salary by the way, especially since it's not your only form of employment. You'd better be worth it buddy.......We work hard to pay the awful taxes here.

At least we made it past the first comment before the comments became ridiculous. We are moving in the right direction!

@oswegoresident jamba juice isn't as healthy as one might think

One 'structural' problem with development in Oswego is that there are three large retail areas that are all separated from each other. There's the Rt. 34 shopping district, downtown, and Orchard Road- even though that never really fully developed. The Village seems to ping pong back and forth between these areas when trying to decide where to spend time and money for promotion.

I've always found it interesting that the Village spent millions of dollars on downtown improvements yet the downtown businesses can't even keep the weeds out of the flower pots or sweep the cigarette butts of their sidewalks. The rehab work was done to a very low quality level. Many of the paver bricks are settling severly and the face brick used in some areas is falling off. So despite spending tons of money, the downtown business owners don't do anything to make the area look any better and the Village ended up with a crappy level of workmanship. The lack of 'development', at least in the downtown area, mostly has to do with the business owners themselves. The taxpayers gave them a huge boost with the rehab efforts and they still never seem satisfied.

If they don't start focusing on the Orchard Rd development, the remaining businesses will fail. How many breakfast/lunch diners have closed within 6mo of opening in the location currently occupied by Calla Lily? The village just held a ribbon cutting for Nick & Pats and now its closed. Vito & Nick's II, and the car wash also closed. With the recent sale if Jewel, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a location that will close. The village missed an opportunity to bring in a few anchor stores that would draw in enough traffic to support the smaller businesses! As a resident on the west side, I'm tired of looking at all the empty buildings!! Good luck to you Mr Gadde.

The Village has nothing to do with the diners closing, people not going there to eat is the reason it closed. If those businesses are to survive they have to have a product that people want and will be repeat customers. If I am not mistaken the ribbon cutting was for the Chamber of Commerce which Nick and Pats were a member. Nick and Pats was sold not closed. Wags to Whiskers closed because of the landlords choice to ask for an extremely high rent. Those shopping centers and stores are someones dreams and business decisions. Some succeed some don't. The Village is not in the business of fulfilling dreams and decision making hand holding. If you are tired of looking at empty stores, then when another one opens make sure you and everyone you know shops there. Anchor stores help a little, but its up to the business owners to have an awesome product to draw people in.