U.S. Open Economic Impact Underwhelmed, Says LM Business Leader

Ardmore Initiative executive director Christine Vilardo said the 113th U.S. Open had, on balance, a neutral effect on local commerce, based on the her conversations with Lower Merion business owners.

"The retailers were down, and the restaurants, some were up," Vilardo said on Tuesday, adding that McCloskey's, McShea's, and A la Maison did particularly well during the tournament while Ardmore Pizza, Carlino's and Di Bruno Brothers had a large volume of orders for catering and delivery.

Vilardo said the tournament also gave rise to a considerable number of what she calls "grassroots commerce" operations; high school students working parking lots, residents selling parking spots to attendees, and a host of other opportunistic, and lucrative, mini-businesses. 

The effects weren't uniformly positive though. While the owner of the Head Nut has publicly grumbled that she only did about 70 percent of her normal business during the tournament, Vilardo said she also fielded complaints from a handful of other local business owners.

Vilardo said the most common criticisms were that the Open shuttles didn't run through Ardmore, the USGA didn't use local business' lots for spectator parking, and that the USGA used the Rosemont station, rather than Ardmore, for its shuttle stop.  

"The township actually advocated for the Ardmore station," Vilardo said, "but the USGA decided Rosemont was a better fit logistically."

Vilardo said that some of the decrease in local business was a function of the expectation that traffic in town would be unmanageable during the Open, an expectation that did not come to pass.

"I think a lot of people stayed away from Ardmore that week because they were afraid of traffic and parking," Vilardo speculated, adding that she drove up and down Ardmore Avenue a few times each day during the tournament to check congestion, and found, to her eyes, that it never was unusually heavy

But despite the fact that the time and effort of many—to say nothing of the $25,000 that was spent on events and promotional materials to market Ardmore during the Open—resulted in a uneven economic impact, Vilardo said she would do it again. 

"It didn't have the economic impact we thought it might, but it shined a light on the town," she said.