Nationwide Protests Against Wal-Mart
Across the country this week, citizens and activists are taking a stand against Wal-Mart. It’s the busiest selling season for the reatiler, and local communities are standing up to its unfair practices, unsafe products and unacceptable behavior. From Wake Up Wal-Mart:
Through its relentless pressure on suppliers to reduce costs, Wal-Mart fosters a corporate culture that encourages cheap manufactures to cut costs and cut corners. The result is that American children are literally placed in harms way when they play with cheaply-made toys from retailers like Wal-Mart.
Local papers have covered allied protests in Minnesota, several in California, and, below, Michigan.
Candlelight vigil against a Wal-Mart in Lincoln Park [Detroit News]
A candlelight vigil is slated for 6-7 p.m. tonight at the Lincoln Park Shopping Center on the northwest corner of Southfield and Dix-Toledo by a group that hopes to keep mega-retailer Wal-Mart from moving into center.
The group, called Wake up Wal-Mart Downriver, claims the discount chain destroys local businesses by undercutting prices, and sells unsafe products imported from China.
Nick Infante, Michigan spokesman for Wal-Mart, said the company now has no plans for a store at the site, which straddles the Allen Park/Lincoln Park border, with about 75 percent of the property in Lincoln Park.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, December 18 | 17 comments | Permalink
Chicago Site Fight: City Hesitant on New Wal-Mart
City wants more time, info before deciding on super-center plans [Chicago Sun-Times] 
The Daley administration has responded to a developer’s request for administrative approval within 30 days to build a Chatham Wal-Mart. But, it’s not the yes or no the developer had in mind.
It’s a plea for more information and more time before deciding what to do with the political hot potato.
“We just don’t have enough information to make a decision” about the proposal to build a new super-center at 83rd and Stewart, said city Planning and Development Department spokesman Peter Scales.
Scales refused to spell out what information the city needs but doesn’t have before making a final decision.
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Tuesday, December 18 | 0 comments | Permalink
St. Charles, IL. Wal-Mart Plans Still “Dead As a Doornail.”
Sprawl-Busters reported on February 6, 2007, that Wal-Mart had proposed a 226,000 s.f. superstore in St. Charles, Illinois that had area residents upset. The project, they said, would generate too many cars, hurt residential property values, and ruin their quality of life. They noted that the new supercenter would result in an empty Wal-Mart discount store located nearby at Route 64. But in February, the St. Charles alderman paved over Wal-Mart’s plans by voting to negotiate to buy roughly 3 acres of land that would block the supercenter from being built. The city said they needed the land to connect two roads—and the road they want to build falls right where Wal-Mart proposed to locate its store. The city said the move was not an effort to stop Wal-Mart, but part of the city’s comprehensive plan to connect Smith Road with Foxfield Drive. On August 22, 2007, we updated the St. Charles story when the city’s Plan Commissioners ended more than a year of debate over the development, by voting 7-0 to kill the Wal-Mart project. The city’s attorneys told officials to abandon the project because Wal-Mart no longer had an option to buy the land. So city officials and Wal-Mart opponents were alarmed this week when a business website, www.chicagorealestatedaily.com, listed the site Wal-Mart wanted as ready for construction. The listing, which is sponsored by Crain’s Chicago Business, indicated that construction of a 200,000 s.f. Wal-Mart supercenter was slated to begin in March of 2008.
This was a total surprise to city officials, since they knew the retailer’s contract with the landowner terminated roughly five months ago. “That kind of threw us for a loop,” the city’s Development Director told the Kane County Chronicle. The city has been planning to build a road through the middle of the property Wal-Mart wanted, as detailed in its Comprehensive Plan for land use. When Wal-Mart dropped out of the project in August, a spokesman admitted, “Why purchase a piece of property they (the city) are going to take from us?” When The Chronicle contacted the same spokesman this week, he had this to say: “The deal is dead as a doornail.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, December 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
Illinois Site Fight: Wal-Mart Defeated
Plans dropped for expanding Glen Carbon Wal-Mart [Belleville News-Democrat (Ill.)]
GLEN CARBON—Wal-Mart has shelved its plan to expand its Glen Carbon store into a Supercenter, ending a long battle over the fate of Cottonwood Mall.
Village officials announced late Monday that the plan has been canceled. “It’s just the facts, and the facts are that they elected not to build,” said Will Shashack, Glen Carbon building and zoning administrator. “There has been talk about remodeling, but I haven’t seen any proposals to remodel yet.”
GlenEd Citizens for Fair Growth, a citizens group opposed to Wal-Mart’s plan, said they were “victorious.”
“We are aware that economics influenced (Wal-Mart’s) decision,” said Karen Bracki O’Koniewski. “However, the local controversy and opposition to the Supercenter and lawsuit filed against the village of Glen Carbon played a part as well.”
O’Koniewski said the group is waiting for official withdrawal of the development plan before it drops its lawsuit against the village.
Posted by Andrew Yonki on Wednesday, December 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Glen Carbon, IL. Citizens Beat Wealthy Wal-Mart Developer
On January 18, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart was trying to convert its discount store into a superstore in Glen Carbon, Illinois. According to the Belleville News-Democrat, the idea of adding 80,000 s.f. to the existing Wal-Mart “isn’t a popular idea with some residents.” Wal-Mart wanted to add all this space inside their existing parking lot. The village Planning & Zoning Commission approved the build out. A group called the Concerned Citizens of Glen Carbon came out against the zoning variance required for Wal-Mart to expand. “I don’t see giving them another advantage to clutter up the neighborhood. All the other businesses have to comply with the (zoning) codes,” said one member of the Concerned Citizens. One of Wal-Mart’s engineers told village officials that Wal-Mart would pick up 40-50 new parking spaces by just storing its garden supplies, like mulch and fertilizers, inside. Wal-Mart currently stores these products outside in their parking lot, which means these substances are getting into the groundwater through stormwater runoff. The owners of the shopping center, THF Properties of St. Louis, says any displaced business in the shopping center will be relocated. The Village Board voted also voted to support the plan. But now, almost one year later, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Wal-Mart’s expansion plans are dead. Mayor Rob Jackstadt told the newspaper earlier this week that Wal-Mart has withdrawn their supercenter expansion plan. That’s good news for the citizens who filed a lawsuit against the Village, the Glen-Ed Citizens for Fair Growth.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, December 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Missouri Site Fight: Wal-Mart Plans Abandoned; Revealed
Glen Carbon mayor says plans to supersize Wal-Mart are dead [St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Mo.)]
GLEN CARBON — A plan to expand the Wal-Mart store at Cottonwood Plaza and make it a 24-hour Supercenter has been withdrawn, Mayor Rob Jackstadt said late Monday.
The plans for the Supercenter prompted a lawsuit against the village and village officials by a residents’ group called Glen-Ed Citizens for Fair Growth.
The organization had strongly opposed the proposal since shortly after it was submitted to Glen Carbon officials in 2006, raising questions about the adequacy of parking, increased traffic congestion and negative impacts on small businesses.
In a statement e-mailed to news media, Jackstadt said that Wal-Mart’s decision had nothing to do with the lawsuit.
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Tuesday, December 11 | 0 comments | Permalink
Indiana Site Fight: Residents Fight Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart foes gain allies in county panel [Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana]
VALPARAISO—Residents near the proposed Wal-Mart super store off Indiana 49 have enlisted the county for help.
About 10 residents appeared before the Porter County Drainage Board on Monday to voice concerns about how the planned 60-acre Coffee Creek Crossing development at the southeast corner of I-49 and the Toll Road would impact them.
Board members agreed that Chesterton, which recently annexed the property, and the developers should be asked to appear before the drainage board and county governing bodies.
“We’ll do everything we can to compel them through the town of Chesterton, which has control of this,” county surveyor Kevin Breitzke said.
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Tuesday, December 11 | 0 comments | Permalink
Chicago Site Fight: St. Charles Wal-Mart Plan “Dead as a Doornail”
Wal-Mart not scheduled to build [Kane County (Ill.) Chronicle]
ST. CHARLES – A site once slated to become a Wal-Mart Supercenter will remain vacant.
Although the business Web site chicagorealeastatedaily.com listed the site as poised for construction, Wal-Mart and city officials said the Nov. 28 posting was incorrect.
“The deal is dead as a doornail,” Wal-Mart spokesman Roderick Scott said.
The city plans to bisect the property, near Foxfield Drive, Smith Road and Charter One Avenue in St. Charles, with a road.
The city is moving to acquire the property for that purpose, St. Charles Development Director Bob Hupp said.
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Monday, December 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
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