Posted on 10/15/2006 10:19:53 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
With the "big box'' ordinance defeated, Wal-Mart is targeting the South Side as the home for its newest stores in the city, city officials confirmed Saturday.
The retailer has met with city planning officials, several aldermen and community groups on the South Side and could propose new Supercenters soon, said officials.
A published report claims the Arkansas-based company has gone as far as to present the city with a list of five potential sites for its new stores: 47th and State; 63rd and Halsted; 63rd and State; 83rd and Stewart, and 111th near the Bishop Ford Freeway. The City Council refused to allow a Wal-Mart at 83rd and Stewart two years ago, but approved a store in Austin, which opened last month.
Citing an unnamed source, the report in Friday's edition of Crain's Chicago Business says the company plans to request zoning and other approvals before the end of the year.
Site list, politics correlate Four sites are in wards where aldermen opposed the ordinance that would have required stores like Wal-Mart --with more than 90,000 square feet and $1 billion in sales --t o pay workers at least $13 an hour in wages and benefits by 2010. Another is in the 16th Ward, where Ald. Shirley Coleman voted to uphold Mayor Daley's veto of the bill after initially supporting the ordinance.
Lori Healey, the city's planning and development commissioner, said Saturday those five wards "are definitely all wards I know they have an interest in. They are underserved by other retailers.''
Talk 'premature': Wal-Mart Coleman said she proposed the 63rd and Halsted site to Wal-Mart because it's vacant now but is near the future home of Kennedy-King College, meaning thousands of potential shoppers will be in the area. She said she met with Wal-Mart officials a couple of weeks ago and "they seemed very interested. I felt good when they left.''
Wal-Mart officials said it was "premature'' to list sites where it planned to open. "We would love to be able to have identified those sites by the end of the year, but I don't know if that's feasible,'' spokesman John Bisio said.
He acknowledged the store is considering building Supercenters -- after initially saying it only wanted regular Wal-Marts -- because aldermen have complained there are few options to buy groceries or fresh produce in the area. Such stores could be as big as 200,000 square feet and employ more than 500 people each, he said.
Bisio also said it makes sense for the company to seek to put stores in neighborhoods "where we are going to be able to engage people who already understand the value of what we provide. I don't think you are going to see us try to shoehorn our way into'' an area where the store is not wanted.
But Denise Dixon, a member of ACORN, which fought for the big box law, Saturday expressed fear that allowing the huge Supercenters could hurt union grocery stores, which "won't be able to compete'' with the nonunion chain.
"I can't see why the aldermen didn't ask Jewel or Dominick's to come, union stores that pay people a living wage,'' said Dixon, of West Englewood.
ACORN is pushing for residents to cast ballots in favor of an advisory referendum similar to the big box ordinance Daley vetoed. Monday is the first day of early voting in the November election.
In a separate development for the chain on Friday, a Pennsylvania jury ordered Wal-Mart to pay $78.5 million for forcing employees to work through breaks and off the clock, which opponents of the chain called a major victory.
dnewbart@suntimes.com
Cool. Wally come to Chi-town.
Wally ping.
These are all areas where jobs are badly needed so, hopefully, these stores will spin off some new ones as well.
The unions are already milking the teachers for dues, so there is no pressure from the unions for any upgrades there. They're looking for new territory to milk money from (WalMart).
Nah - hers is a non-union job but you nailed it with the union buying out the pols.
Because people want what Walmart is selling?
WalMart Ping...........
But I sort of wish they would stay out of the cities and let the poor urban folk pay the high prices of the unionized stores of the competition. In my opinion, since poor urban folk support socialism and Democrats (though one would argue they are one and the same), they deserve what they get.
Wal-Mart is doing a noble thing, bringing quality goods at reasonable prices to the mostly stupid, illiterate folk of the big cities, but as they say, no good deed ever goes unpunished and Wal-Mart may rue the day they got into the urban hellholes.
Let the decent rural folk appreciate the benefits that Wal-Mart has to offer their communities.
A friend of mine owns a Goodyear tire and service center in NE Georgia. He was scared when Wally World came to town (They have their own tire and service center), but in fact it has increased his business tremendously, because of the extra (out of town) traffic.
Your friend is lying to you.
I know, I've read many a WalMart thread here on FR, and know for a fact that your friend is hanging on by a thread, and WalMart is going to cut it completely any day now. /s
If you listen to ACORN and similar radical groups, Wal Mart uses "press gangs" to round-up workers who are chained to their work stations and work in sweat shop conditions. While Wal Mart jobs aren't glamorous they seem to attract people and in this part of Chicago they can use some more jobs.
Yeah he is lying to me!
And those 4 new bays he put in is definitely a sign of a dying business!
According to a longtime Walmart associate I know, not only is Wal mart doing away with layaway, they're also going to upgrade what they stock (ie they're going to try to compete with Target) and they're going to do away with 24/7 walmarts : They're going to 11PM-6Am hours of operation, with the 7 hours they're closed being reserved for cleaning (and hopefully stocking shelves).
Yeah, the people will choose Walmart, they won't choose the rip-offs. Here's the problem for dem union goons - guys who don't do jack, but want $90,000 a year -- they're going to lose out to the decent people of Walmart, and their new customeres.
And they're not going to like it.
Walmart wants to sell to the poor at the same price they sell to the rest of us. Dems don't like that.
Union dems want the poor to keep paying more for less - and having to be grateful for the privilege.
Walmart's going to change that...
I used to like Wally World when Sam Walton ran it--now I am appalled by the news of making people work off the clock etc (PA lawsuit.) WalMart's corporate greed is unabashed and anabatable--bad for the US and it purchases loads of products from slaveowner China. I have become very disillusioned with WalMart.
The only problem with your theory - is the influx of those urban Dem/socialists into rural areas and they bring that baggage with them.
When rumors first started flying last winter about a proposed WalMart in our county, an anti-WalMart group quickly sprang up and took ads out in the local papers.......guess what websites they directed the readers to? The union backed ones, of course!!! No surprise there.
BTW, I read in the paper yesterday that the guy that spearheaded the entire anti-WalMart thing in this county - just became the head of the County Democratic Party, in the NEXT county.
Almost all consumer products come out of China.
I defend Wal-Mart because they are one of the very few companies that can afford the risk of opening a store
in a blighted inner city neighborhood.
Most chain stores have pulled out of the inner city
namely Jewel and Dominick food stores. Most of these stores
were operating at a loss but political pressure kept
them open.
Hehe! Good for him!
Blah blah blah same-old left-wing talking points. Go back to DU
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