Tucson, AZ. Wal-Mart Silent on Shopping Center Questions

Wal-Mart mum on El Con Mall move [Tucson Citizen (Ariz.)]

Wal-Mart and Macy’s won’t confirm reports that the two are in discussions about Wal-Mart taking over the vacant Macy’s at El Con Mall.

Lane Oden, an attorney for El Con, reportedly told leaders of surrounding neighborhoods in April that talks are “far along” for Wal-Mart to assume the Macy’s lease, but Oden “doesn’t take calls from reporters,” a woman at his office said.

El Con spokeswoman Susan Allen would not respond to a request for an interview other than to issue a prepared statement:

“Interviews and/or comments on the dispositon of the Macy’s lease at El Con Mall are premature as there is no deal at this time of which we are aware that merits discussion.”

When asked specifically about Wal-mart, Macy’s spokeswoman Laura Smith said: “No comment. We don’t really know the specifics yet. Maybe we will know more in a week.”

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Delia Garcia would not directly answer the question about talks with Macy’s.

“We’d be interested in taking over the lease if the opportunity presented itself,” Garcia said. “It’s no secret Wal-Mart would be interested to go into the Macy’s space. We don’t have anything we’re pursuing at this time.”

The Wal-Mart angle became public only because Oden brought the subject up at an El Con Tripartite Committee meeting in April. This committee brings together neighborhood leaders, city development services officials and El Con officials on a near-monthly basis to discuss what’s happening at El Con.

The committee was established in a development agreement between the city and El Con when major renovations were announced in 2000; it allows the surrounding neighborhoods to have an official voice in what happens at El Con, which touches on neighborhoods to the west and north.

Ron Spark, president of the El Encanto Homeowners Association, said through attorney Bruce Heurlein that Oden said “negotiations between Macy’s and Wal-Mart were far along and apparently (Oden) had heard that.”

Craig Gross, deputy director of the city’s Development Services Department, said Glenn Moyer, the department representative on the tripartite committee, heard the same thing.

“We have not seen any kind of plans,” Gross said. “We don’t really know what they are.”

Using the existing three-story, 300,000-square foot vacant Macy’s building would be unusual for Wal-Mart. It’s not known if the city’s big box ordinance would come into play.
The ordinance addresses two primary factors:

Stores larger than 100,000 square feet have to meet regulations concerning where loading docks are, the hours shipments are taken and setbacks from neighborhoods.

No more than 10 percent of the store can be devoted to food.

“Would El Con lend itself to continuing development as a big box center? Probably,” Gross said. “The ordinance does not say that big boxes are bad. The big box stores just need to have extra consideration to be good neighbors.”

That’s not how some neighbors think.

“We will fight it tooth and nail,” said Vince Rabago, former president of the El Conquistador Estates Neighborhood Association. “My sense is people don’t want a big box mall in there. It’s not the same kind of use, frankly, (as a mall). It’s the quality of tenant.”

Heurlein guaranteed a fight, too, from El Encanto.

“The hope is El Con would be as it was years ago and not a cluster of discount retail stores,” Heurlein said.