In March, Target Corporation moved into the 49,000 square foot building that has remained unoccupied in the Marin Gateway shopping center in Marin City for over a year.
The new Target has brought many job opportunities to the Southern Marin area,employing 75 to 100 people.
According to Trish Thompson, the manager at the new Target, around 50 percent of their employees are from Marin City.
The two other Targets in Marin, located in Novato and San Rafael, operate in spaces upwards of 130,000 square feet, while the Marin City location is much smaller.
Prior to Target’s opening, the community lacked a place to buy groceries, the closest grocery stores being in Sausalito and Mill Valley. The new addition, with its large fresh foods section, is a more convenient location for Marin City’s roughly 3,000 locals.
Makayla Lee, a Redwood student who lives in Sausalito, said that Target makes life much easier because it sells basic items at cheaper prices.
“I used to drive 10-15 minutes to get simple things like cosmetics, groceries and even some clothing. This new Target will make things much more convenient for me and my family,” Lee said.
“[Target] is what Marin City needs,” Marin City community leader Felecia Gaston said in an interview with the Marin IJ.
Azariah Donaldson, a Marin City resident and Redwood freshman, also believes that the new addition benefits the community.
“Before Target, we had to go to Safeway in Strawberry for groceries. Some people in Marin City don’t even have cars, so it was very hard for them. They often had to ask for rides from other people, which was unreliable,” Donaldson said.
Target has also been taking into account the high living cost in Marin. They pay employees at least $14.75 an hour, according to Melissa Cadet, executive director of the Marin City community development corp. This is much higher than the current minimum wage in Marin County, which is $10 according to the MIT minimum wage calculator.
Thompson said the wages are very “competitive,” even higher than at some Target locations in San Francisco.
Due to the prevalence of government-subsidized housing, Marin City can accommodate a lower-income community, so these competitive wages are meant to fit the needs of a lower-income employee and customer base.
