North Tonawanda, NY. City Boards Happily Fawn Over Wal-Mart
City officials in North Tonawanda, New York---from the Mayor on down---think they can grow their economy by cannibalizing their retail sector. They are in for an unpleasant surprise when they invite the cannibal for dinner. On April 8, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that the Mayor of the city of North Tonawanda was thrilled with the idea of a Wal-Mart supercenter---before he had even gathered any data on the potential impact of the store on his community.
His city has lost about 9% of its population since 1990—which should be a clear indicator that expanding retail square footage is a mistake. As of 2006, the city had just under 32,000 people. The city also has 6 Wal-Mart stores within 19 miles, including a Wal-Mart discount store 3 miles away in Amherst, New York, and a supercenter 10 miles away in Clarence, New York. North Tonawanda is located midway between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, and is the second largest community in the County of Niagara. Historically, North Tonawanda was an important regional manufacturing center, but today, the city is focused on waterfront development, entertainment and tourism.
Although this community has ample access to cheap Chinese imports, Wal-Mart is still pressuring city officials to let them build a superstore. Only one thing stands in the way: local residents. The retailer’s first proposal did not go over well, so the corporation fell back and came up with a “Plan B.” In early March, 2008, Wal-Mart’s supercenter proposal ran into a Wal of opposition at a public hearing.
According to the Tonawanda News, at least 100 residents packed into the Grant Elementary School to protest the superstore. Although the chairman of the city’s Planning Commission told the audience that Wal-Mart was not the issue at hand, most people testifying made it clear that Wal-Mart was the problem. Most of the focus has been on the traffic problems that this store will create.
Dave Seeger, a lawyer representing North Tonawanda First, the citizen’s group opposing Wal-Mart, challenged Wal-Mart’s typical assertion in its traffic “study” that a superstore would actually improve traffic in the area. “How does that happen?” Seeger asked the Planning Commission. “Answer: You cheat.” To counter North Tonawanda First, Wal-Mart cobbled together a “citizens” group called Lumber City Liaisons for Wal-Mart, which testified in favor of the plan. In April, the Wal-Mart project came before the Planning Commission. The city hired the engineering firm Wendel Duchscherer to advise them on the project.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, September 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
North Whitehall, PA. Supervisors Tell Wal-Mart To Do Their Own Traffic Study
This case dates back to September 25, 2007, when Sprawl-Busters reported that the tiny township of North Whitehall, Pennsylvania--population roughly 2,000--had a big problem tossed in their lap: a Wal-Mart supercenter.
North Whitehall already has 7 Wal-Mart stores within 20 miles, including three supercenters, with a supercenter in Whitehall a mere 7 miles away. In its continuing drive to saturate the area, Wal-Mart proposed a 176,846-s.f. superstore on 32.6 acres in a former orchard at Route 309 and Levans Road. In early October, 2007, the township supervisors, chaired by Ron Stahley, held an afternoon meeting for residents to express their concerns about the massive Wal-Mart project---which would be the largest retail building in the history of this community.
Opponents of the project showed up to voice their concerns over the superstore. North Whitehall describes itself as being “Primarily agricultural in nature…a desirable place to live and continues to do so by retaining its unique blend of residential and rural character.” Residents opposed to Wal-Mart formed a group called North Whitehall for Sustainable Development to protect that rural character. This volunteer organization dedicated itself to promoting responsible development that conserves natural resources and ecological balance, while providing for the needs of residents in and around North Whitehall. The organization has been working to prevent the construction of this big box store adjacent to the Schnecksville Fire Company.
Residents’ opposition to the project is based on traffic safety; air, water, noise and light pollution; and loss of open space. The Planning Commission began reviewing the plans in September of 2007. During the review period, Wal-Mart asked for delays, so that it could ‘refine’ its proposal. The final hearing on the proposal took place in early July, 208, and focused on the key issue of traffic.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, September 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
Salt Lake City, UT. Planners OK Controversial Wal-Mart, But Commission Votes Next
On July 29, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart was trying to sugar-coat a project in Sugar House, one of Salt Lake City, Utah’s oldest neighborhoods. The area is known for its distinctive local stores and small-town charm. Wal-Mart wants to build a 122,320 s.f. supercenter in the heart of Sugar House, but first it must tear down an empty 113,000 s.f. Kmart it bought several years ago. The city’s zoning ordinance says the existing building can be remodeled—but not torn down. Wal-Mart has therefore asked for a rezoning of the property---and tried to sweeten the deal by offering a landscaping package, “green” features on the building, new sidewalks and other site amenities. “We plan to invest a significant amount of money and resources into the redevelopment of this site, eventually providing the community with a store that is appealing to the eye, technologically modern and environmentally progressive,” a Wal-Mart spokesman promised.
But an advisory group to the council, known as the Sugar House Community Council, opposes the rezoning, claiming that a previous owner of the parcel on E. Parleys Way agreed to the current zoning rules in exchange for zoning flexibility on another piece of property. “I don’t care what the business is, whether it’s Wal-Mart or Kmart or Target or any other business. The thing I’m concerned about is that it stays with the current zoning, with the current types of businesses” in the area, a Sugar House Community Council spokesman said.
But the vice-chairman of the Sugar House Council thinks Wal-Mart is a sweet deal. He told the Salt Lake Tribune that many people oppose the rezoning because they don’t like Wal-Mart. “I fear that they will use their hatred of Wal-Mart, because they don’t like Wal-Mart for Wal-Mart, and they will not judge it for what it will do for the community,” he said. Kmart, which has been at this location for 40 years, is shutting down. Wal-Mart bought the property in 2005, but less than a year later, the city voted to prohibit superstores in the ‘community business’ zone.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, September 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
Illegal? No. Unethical? You be the Judge
In a story posted today from KXLY.com in Spokane, Washington, it seems that Wal-Mart has found a new market, in undercutting a local high-school. A Wal-Mart store in Cheney, Washington has begun selling shirts that bear the logo of the Cheney Blackhawks, the town’s high-school sports team. Wal-Mart does not pay the school royalties for using the logo, nor do they have permission from the school to sell the shirts and this is bad news according to the school’s Activities Director, Jim Missel who had this to say:
“They can buy their stuff at a larger quantity and be able to sell it at a cheaper price. It hurts us when this happens.”
Cheney High School uses revenues from their own apparel sales to fund school activities and athletic programs, and without that revenue, it becomes increasingly harder to finance such programs. Missel says he doesn’t want to start a war with Wal-Mart, but would likely appreciate some consideration for the situation. Wal-Mart told a journalist from KXLY that the company “tries to give customers what they want at a good price, while still being a good neighbor”.
The ironic thing is that by selling shirts with the Blackhawks logo on them, they are lessening the chance that Blackhawks athletic programs will even continue to exist. If anyone out there knows of this kind of thing happening in their town, feel free to tell us about it in the comments section.
Is Wal-Mart undercutting local athletic programs?
CHENEY - The start of the 2008 football season hits Thursday night, but if you’re looking to get into school spirit there’s at least one team on the West Plains that hopes you consider where you buy your gear from.
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Posted by Luke West on Friday, September 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
Moon, PA. Wal-Mart Blows Off 30 Day Deadline
On July 11, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that Supervisors in Moon township Pennsylvania had taken one giant step for mankind---by voting against a preliminary plan for a Wal-Mart superstore---but one week later, under fear of litigation from Wal-Mart, they reversed their decision and voted in favor of the superstore. This sudden change of heart was not brought about by any changes in Wal-Mart’s plan, but because of bad legal advice from the township’s law firm, who scared the supervisors into believing their own personal assets could be on the line if Wal-Mart sued the township. The supervisors voted 3-2 against a Wal-Mart preliminary plan for a superstore on July 3rd. But seven days later, at a hastily called meeting on July 10th, they reversed their vote to 4-1 in favor of the plan. Two of the supervisors who voted against the plan said they had “misgivings about the legality of their vote.” All Wal-Mart had to do in Moon was threaten to throw its legal weight around, and the supervisors backed down.
Wal-Mart has applied to build a 148,561 s.f. superstore on the site of an abandoned 1960s-era mall known as the West Hills Shopping Center, located on one of the community’s major intersections, University Boulevard and Brodhead road. There are also two major housing developments abutting the project on its western side. “We are working toward our No 1 goal,” Supervisor Chairman Tim McLaughlin told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette in June. “To have the best Wal-Mart in Western Pennsylvania.”
There’s lots of competition, because Wal-Mart has 15 stores within 25 miles of Moon, including a Wal-Mart three miles away from this site. The proposed Wal-Mart is incompatible with all the planning the township has done over the past 5 years regarding the special overlay district where this site is located. Township officials developed a plan that would maintain the University Boulevard corridor’s commercial success. That plan was the Beers School Road Strategic Plan, which included a conceptual design for improvements to University Boulevard to improve traffic flow, enhance pedestrian access and mobility and develop streetscape improvements. The plan was presented and approved by the Moon Township Board of Supervisors in 2003. The township went further, and created the University Boulevard Overlay district, a tool to implement their strategic plan for the area.
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Posted by Al Norman on Friday, September 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
West Dundee, IL. West Approves Wal-Mart Superstore To Detriment of East
This could be the final chapter in the Tale of Two Cities. On April 5, 2006, Sprawl-Busters reported that the village of East Dundee, Illinois was in an uproar because a real estate listing showed that the Wal-Mart discount store # 1531 in the village was being advertised as available for lease or sale by the winter of 2007, and that a larger superstore was going to be built in neighboring West Dundee.
East Dundee Village President Jerald Bartels met with local Wal-Mart officials, who seemed as surprised as he was. The East Dundee store was not officially posted on the Wal-Mart Realty website. “We have no official word from Wal-Mart that anything is happening at this point,” officials said at the time. But Wal-Mart officials eventually told the village it was shutting down its store in East Dundee to move to West Dundee.
The store in West Dundee will be less than 2 miles from the existing store in East Dundee. One local official described Wal-Mart’s move from East Dundee as a “body blow” to village finances. The Wal-Mart discount store on Dundee Avenue in East Dundee is now about 20 years old-—which is ancient by Wal-Mart standards. The East Dundee store generates about $600,000 a year in sales tax revenues for the village-—a gross number, before subtracting out the substantial municipal expenses, such as police, fire and road maintenance.
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Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, September 04 | 0 comments | Permalink
Charlotte, NC Wal-Mart Looking for $500,000 Subsidy
A Wal-Mart developer in Charlotte, North Carolina is looking for a handout. In fact, he’s looking for a half million dollar tax bailout in order to give Charlotte another Wal-Mart supercenter. There are currently “only” eight Wal-Mart stores in Charlotte, half of them are supercenters.
So another Wal-Mart for Charlotte is akin to bringing coals to Newcastle, or swallows to Capistrano. The idea of the public having to pay for the privilege of having another Wal-Mart is adding insult to injury. The Charlotte Business Journal reports this week that the developer, Faison and Associates, has asked city taxpayers to pony up $500,000 for a Wal-Mart supercenter in the abandoned Amity Gardens Shopping Center.
Faison says it doesn’t have enough money to pay for a road connecting the project to the abutting Coliseum Shopping Center. This boondoggle was first announced in 2006, when the city gave the land in question a rezoning. The zoning change allowed a mix of retail and other commercial uses for the property, but Faison is building only the 155,000-s.f.
Wal-Mart superstore. City officials seems to be happy to subsidize this wealthy developer and the world’s richest retailer, because the project represents a $25 million investment in the city. So what’s the big deal if taxpayers have to toss in $400,000 for road construction, and another $100,000 to clean up contamination on the site? There is no way that Wal-Mart could afford to chip in---their budget has been blown on image advertising and lobbying contributions.
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Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, September 04 | 0 comments | Permalink
Vernon Hills, IL. Wal-Mart Superstore Back For A Second Bite
On May 26, 2008 Sprawl-Busters reported that village officials in Vernon Hills, Illinois, were saying that a proposed Wal-Mart supercenter had been cancelled. This week, local residents said reports of Wal-Mart’s demise were premature, and the retailer is still a threat. They indicate that a new proposal for a Wal-Mart is surfacing one mile south of where the original plan was filed. Vernon Hills, a community of roughly 24,500 people, already has a Wal-Mart discount store on Townline Road.
There are 19 Wal-Mart stores within 20 miles of Vernon Hills, one of which is a supercenter in Waukegan, Illinois just ten miles away. On June 5, 2007, President of the Village Trustees, Roger Byrne, announced that Bradford Realty planned to petition the Village of Vernon Hills to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter on a vacant lot north of Gregg’s Parkway at Milwaukie Avenue, on land formerly owned by printing magnate John Cuneo Sr.
From the outset, the Wal-Mart proposal triggered an outpouring of vocal opposition. A citizen’s group launched a website against the project. The group explained: “As residents of Gregg’s Landing and other neighborhoods in Vernon Hills, Libertyville, and Mundelein we respectfully say ‘No, Thank you.’ Wal-Mart has been an asset to our community and has contributed greatly. They have donated thousands of dollars to our local schools, civic groups and charities. While we are very appreciative of these efforts we do not believe building a Supercenter at that location is in anyone’s best interest. We urge Wal-Mart to expand at their current site rather than construct a new facility. We have several specific concerns which cannot be remedied. These concerns include: dangerous traffic and safety issues, potential environmental hazards, decreased property values, excessive noise, and more.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, September 03 | 0 comments | Permalink
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