Kenwood, FL. Neighbors Size Up Wal-Mart
Neighbors size up Wal-Mart [St. Petersburg Times]
Wal-Mart coming to town often spurs discussions of politics and economics, but at a crowded neighborhood meeting Thursday about a proposed store near Kenwood, the chief issue was cars.
The main concern was access to the site now occupied by a former furniture store and an auto parts supplier at 34th Street and First Avenue N.
Wal-Mart’s engineer said state regulations forced it to eliminate auto access from 34th Street and allow entrance to the site only from First or Burlington avenues. Neighbors feared drivers would get confused about not being able to enter in front of the store and end up driving through the neighborhood.
Wal-Mart is proposing a 107,000-square-foot “urban supercenter” on the site, which is about half the square footage of the buildings there now. Unlike its bigger box discount stores, like those north and south on 34th Street, this one is aimed at a market in about a one-mile radius, so the company doesn’t expect to generate congestion.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Friday, June 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
FLORIDA SITE FIGHT: GETTING THE ‘INITIAL NOD’
Wal-Mart gets initial nod for Princeton store [Orlando Sentinel]
ORLANDO—The Orlando City Council has given preliminary approval to rezone land for a Wal-Mart Supercenter planned between College Park and neighborhoods along Mercy Drive.
Plans for the 24-hour Wal-Mart at the northwest corner of John Young Parkway and Princeton Street have prompted mixed reactions.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Thursday, June 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
FLORIDA SITE FIGHT: SMALLER STORE COMING, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT
Wal-Mart likes site on 34th St. in Kenwood [St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times]
ST. PETERSBURG - Wal-Mart could be coming to central St. Petersburg, and there may be nothing neighbors can say about it.
The company, often criticized for trampling the environment and small business, may build a smaller version of its typical supercenter on the northeast corner of 34th Street and First Avenue N. Because the plan for a 107, 000-square-foot store fits with zoning regulations at the site, the project would require no special permission so neighbors would have no opportunity to express any opinion.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Wednesday, June 06 | 0 comments | Permalink
ARKANSAS SITE FIGHT: NEW WAL-MART UPSETTING RESIDENTS
Some people who live in Sherwood are upset over a Wal-Mart Supercenter going up close to their homes. The new store is going up off Highway 107 at Maryland Avenue.
But not everyone’s upset over Wal-Mart’s new Supercenter. The Sherwood mayor says that ever since they lost their Wal-Mart off Highway 167/67, he’s wanted a new one. His wish is coming true, as ground is being broken for a Supercenter.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Tuesday, June 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
Fayetteville, AR. Citizen Opposition Forces Wal-Mart To Apply Brakes On Growth
Opposition by local community groups across the country, and by Wall Street analysts, has taken a big bite out of Wal-Mart’s projected new store growth plans. Widespread unhappiness on Main Street and Wall Street combined to force the giant retailer to suddenly pull in its wings. The company has admitted for many years that it is cannibalizing its own sales. But Wal-Mart abruptly announced yesterday at its Annual Stockholder’s meeting that during its 2008 fiscal year, it will open between 190 and 200 new stores in the United States. Any of the 18,000 stockholders present---if they happened to open the company’s 2007 Annual Report in their lap---would read that Wal-Mart’s future expansion plans called for “265 to 270 new supercenters.” In just a matter of weeks, Wal-Mart executives chose to depart from the “Management’s Discussion” in their Annual Report, and instead cut back expansion plans dramatically by 26%. Two years ago, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott was quoted by the Chicago Tribune as saying, “When we you get as large as we are, you have to paint a picture in people’s minds that you can still grow. Otherwise, they think of $285 billion (in sales) and think ‘That’s the end of that.’ Well, it isn’t.” For several years, Wall Street’s reaction to the retailer’s overly-aggressive U.S. construction forecast has been less than encouraging. Two months before Scott’s speech at the Executive Club in Chicago, Bernstein Research Call issued a 13 page report warning stockholders of the downside of Wal-Mart’s superstore plans. The analysts noted that Wal-Mart’s growth “is under siege in several regions of the country from growing opposition by local communities…Local opposition has successfully squashed numerous plans among big box players in different parts of the country.” Bernstein noted that “heightened resistance could negatively impact these retailers by slowing their square footage growth rates.” Even modestly slower long-term square footage growth could have both an earnings per share and valuation impact, researchers said. Because of opposition groups, “it is clear that (discount retailers) will need to pursue a substantially larger number of permits going forward to hit their internal square footage targets given the likelihood of many opportunities failing.” Citizen groups’ successes grew at a 21% annual rate in 2004 and 2005. Sprawl-Busters records indicate that 46 Wal-Mart projects alone were defeated or withdrawn in 2006. Not only has Wal-Mart suddenly slammed the brakes for 2008, but the company said yesterday it would open about 170 superstores per year for the next three years. As proof that citizen opposition has thrown Wal-Mart off its production schedule, the company also admitted that as many as 80 of its supercenters which were expected to have ribbon-cuttings in 2008, now have been deferred into 2009. Roughly 30% of its planned stores are not coming in on time, and many of these may never, in fact, open. Hence, the narrowing of the production pipeline for 2008 and out years. Wal-Mart said its deceleration plans mean adjustments will be made at Wal-Mart Realty. The real estate division of the company has been submitting supercenter sites as close as two or three miles apart. Wal-Mart acknowledges that this amounts to picking its own pockets. “We also have been focused this year on reducing cannibalization of existing stores via our more strategic selection of U.S. real estate projects,” explained John Menzer, the company’s Chief Administrative Officer.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, June 04 | 0 comments | Permalink
Pep Rally, Theatrical Spectacle and Strategic Board Meeting All in One
An air of carnival invades Benton County, Arkansas, this week as shareholders and employees from around the world flock to Wal-Mart’s world headquarters in Bentonville. The company’s annual shareholder meeting will take place this Friday: more a highly-orchestrated theatrical event than an open forum for discussion, the meeting is nonetheless a chance to examine where the company is and where it’s headed. Several stories already this week have begun to examine what’s in store for the annual meeting.
We here at Wal-Mart Watch are also looking forward to the meeting - and not just because Kool and the Gang are slated to perform. Check here Friday morning for live blogging of the event, starting at 7 AM central time (8 AM eastern).
Wal-Mart meeting wows workers [Northwest Arkansas News]
Let the show begin.
The annual pep rally, entertainment extravaganza and business gathering — otherwise known as the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shareholders meeting week — is under way…
“Wal-Mart’s had, in some respects, a bad year, and allowing shareholders to ask questions is a good thing,” said Patricia Edwards, a fund manager with Wentworth, Hauser & Violich, Investment Counselors, in Seattle.
Retailer’s Riddle: Grow or Invest? [Wall Street Journal]
Amid the festivities at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s annual shareholders meeting on Friday, analysts and investors plan to press for answers on a seminal concern: How soon will the retailer significantly curtail its U.S. growth to focus more resources on its faltering base of existing stores?
It is a question that Wal-Mart has faced repeatedly as a maturing retailer. But pressure on Wal-Mart to act dramatically on the issue is intensifying.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, May 30 | 4 comments | Permalink
LOCAL RESIDENTS PROTEST AT WMT SHAREHOLDER MEETING
Group Plans Shareholders Protest [(Ark.) Morning News]What would a Wal-Mart shareholders meeting be without a protest?
Around 40 to 50 people are expected to meet at the Fayetteville High School parking lot Friday and then march to the Wal-Mart shareholders meeting at Bud Walton Arena on the University of Arkansas campus. They are part of Against the Wal, a local group that has held similar protests at the world’s largest retailer’s annual meeting for the last four years, said spokeswoman Rozlyn Grace.
“The core group is built of local people because we feel that Wal-Mart controls the local community here in Northwest Arkansas,” Grace said in an e-mail to The Morning News. “We are completely independent and not supported or connected to any other project, such as Wal-Mart Watch or Wake-Up Wal-Mart,” union-backed groups based in Washington that are highly critical of the company.
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Posted by Jason Korta on Wednesday, May 30 | 0 comments | Permalink
Florida Site Fight: Wal-Mart Should Let Light Shine on Wetlands
Wal-Mart should let light shine on wetlands [Editorial: St. Petersburg Times]
Wal-Mart has always claimed that it can be trusted to be a good neighbor and asset to the community of Tarpon Springs. Message to Wal-Mart: If you want to be trusted, don’t act like you’ve got something to hide.
Wal-Mart ought to help its neighbors resolve a concern they have about wetlands on the acreage where the retailer plans to build a new supercenter. Instead, Wal-Mart has declined to allow access to the property.
Civic activists and Wal-Mart opponents have kept a close eye on plans for the supercenter and, to their credit, have uncovered several problems that have resulted in delays and site plan changes. So city commissioners listened when those activists called attention to a discrepancy in Wal-Mart’s account of the wetlands acreage on the environmentally sensitive site along the Anclote River.
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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, May 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
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