Population of The Villages
 

Interesting up-to-date factoid in today's Daily Sun, C1:
"113,931 - The Villages population in Lake, Marion and Sumter counties as of March."

Yes, that is difficult information to get because The Villages is in three counties and also in adjacent towns/cities. I wonder what a population number would be for a 50 mile radius of The Villages. This is the kind of numbers looked out for larger commercial regional malls.

that could be a correct number if all owners were here

Very interesting.
I know this is silly, but recently I kept track of the population numbers for each state as listed in the "Where we're from" page in the Daily Sun.
The total for all states combined is just over 55,000.
I wonder what these numbers are based on, maybe permanent Florida residents only?
Or maybe these numbers haven't been updated for a long time?

The Villages alone is larger than Ocala, Belleview, Summerfield, Fruitland Park and Leesburg put together.

I don't understand why more businesses don't open more stores here.

There's a Guitar Center in Ocala for example. I would think that it would do much better in TV. Costco in Altamonte, of course, draws from Orlando, but the fact that there is not one either in or within a few miles of TV is perplexing. it would centrally located for all of the communities that I mentioned and would extremely well.

And you can throw Wildwood into that mix as well.

Combined all of those communities have a population of about 106,000, add TV and we're over 215,000

215000 is not that big of a number to draw a store like Costco. For example, I currently live in the Raleigh NC area. Raleigh is in Wake County. The city of Raleigh's latest population number is about 450,000 and the population of the county is about 1.1 million. We have had somewhere between 65 and 70 people on average a day moving into this area for at least 15 years. Even with those numbers Wake County only had one Costco until a year ago when they built a second one. We also have 2 Trader Joe's to serve 1.1 million people.

We have several Wal Marts and a Sam's Club the those communities. If you have 2 Costcos for 450,000 why wouldn't they put one in for 215,000 and growing. The Villages has been the faster growing community in the country, every year for several years now. I would think that someone in one of those corporate offices would see the writing on the wall.

While I would LOVE to see Costco come here, they obviously have their own set of metrics/demographics that they use to build in new locations.

They may very well be thinking that even with a decent population, because it is a majority of 'mature/retired' folks...they don't see the sense in coming now.

After all, their bread and butter is from people buying everyday items in bulk and they may think that the area is populated by cheapskates...and older folks who avoid buying green bananas. :D

We have 2 Costcos for 1.1 Million people

I don't think they believe the population is "cheapskates" as you call them but they may be looking for a higher number of residents per home than there is in TV. They may wonder, as I do, why any retired couple needs to buy in bulk.

I suspect the cost of the land, lease or buy is a significant factor.

Because it is cheaper?????

If you go out 50 miles in all directions (north, south, east , west) from The Villages, a WAG (wild ass guess) might be a population of 800,000 more or less. Currently, I am not in a place to check my WAG but I just googled population of the four surrounding counties and came up with 912,138. Interesting, yes or no?

508 Costco stores in US

US population 325 Mil

1 Costco for every 640,000

.

The amount of food and other goods for the myriad of parties should make them want to be here. All our clubs go there for the things they need. I see pallets of goods going out every time I go there. That is my "go to place" when I host a party and supply my friends supply the clubs