An interesting article in The Wall Street Journal about the money and voices behind some of the Walmart resistance across the US.
Robert Brownson long believed that his proposed development here, with its 200,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter, was being held hostage by nearby homeowners.
He had seen them protesting at city hall, and they had filed a lawsuit to stop the project.
What he didn't know was that the locals were getting a lot of help. A grocery chain with nine stores in the area had hired Saint Consulting Group to secretly run the antidevelopment campaign. Saint is a specialist at fighting proposed Wal-Marts, and it uses tactics it describes as "black arts."...A good read for those around here who always felt that Tops was funding the resistance to the reuse of the old mall site as a Super Center.
12 comments:
This begs the question: What is going on with the demoliton of the mal and construction of the Supercenter? Any news? Anyone?
I wonder if Tops buying up Quality and now having three stores in the area is causing Walmart to reconsider? It seams that the law suits have all been settled, so why isn't this getting built? Has Walmart abandoned us also?
It's about time someone did some investigation and ran with this. The anti-Walmart crowd is having their strings pulled by A: Other corporations, B: Unions who see Walmart as a untapped source of revenue, and C: Lawyers who are just out for cash.
Last I heard, although Walmart, err, actually, the Town of Lockport won, the last court battles, a new lawyer who also specializes in using the legal system to stifle the free market system regardless of what residents of the town or village actually want said that they wanted to be listed as an associated party. Meaning, that they were looking for more ways to sue, and, there's still a chance that they can appeal the last loss.
Meanwhile, Smart Growth is silent on the further monopolization of Tops with the purchase of Quality.
Smart Growth is silent on the new structure where the McDonald's once was.
Smart Growth is silent on, well, everything else that is not Walmart.
I've heard by the end of the summer the mall sould be coming down, and by spring/summer of '11 Walmart should be open.
I do not know how involved Tops was, but I hope people realize that some of us were/are against this because it was such a stupid idea to kick out the stores that were in the mall in order to have Walmart build a new store in a location that is too small for it while leaving another empty building.
Why wasn't it built next to the fieldstone where a real super center could have been put in?
The orig plan was the movie theater was going to the walmart building and walmart was going into the mall, so there would be no empty buildings but now that the theater has been gone for 2years who knows if that is still the plan. If not I hope some big rats breed in the old walmart and start wandering around on Shimer Dr., and the Tops lot. As for the property next to the Fieldstone the owners want an outrageous amount of $$$$ for the property.
Anonymous Said "As for the property next to the Fieldstone the owners want an outrageous amount of $$$$ for the property."
With your knowledge of the asking price for said land, please share the asking price with us. I would be willing to bet that had walmart gone there in the beginning, it would have cost less then all their legal fees, the cost of buying the mall, the Asbestos removal in the mall , demolition of the mall, tear up the existing parking lot and replacing the existing water and sewer lines. Not to mention the lost profits over the last five or six years that they could have been open.
I have to disagree. Walmart would have been fought in that location also. Most likely in the name of "green space". Just as mush time and money would have been wasted.
Walmart will be half the size of the current mall. I still fail to see what there is to complain about. The mall was on a slide as most small malls across the country have gone through. The Summit is also gone now. We should be happy the lot is being reused, using existing infrastructure and updating the area. The existign Walmart will be smaller and thus hopefully easier to reuse.
The property is assessment $98,000 for 63 acres but they want in the millions, we will leave it at that. Smart Growth also didn't raise an eyebrow when Tops put in those gas pumps, all the gas fumes going into the very neighborhood that was complaining about exhaust fumes from Walmart customers. Hmmmmmmm
You should be happy Walmart wants to do all those fixes at the mall, because if they didn't, nobody else would have, and you would have even more of an eyesore over the next few years as it slid into furthur disrepair.
Interesting that people like to tell Walmart where they should build their stores. Isn't it really up to them where they decide to build??
If Walmart showed up at your door and told you what color to paint your house, you'd slam the door in their face. They jumped thru all the hoops the town put out, and outlasted the lawsuits in court,
now let them build in peace!
does anyone know an estimate of how much it would cost to fix up the mall?
Huh?
So it can fail again? Small malls don't work anymore.
Post a Comment
Please be be respectful. Diverse opinions are welcome and encouraged. Trolling/baiting/personal attacks/spam will be deleted on sight, as will respnding to one that has yet to be deleted. Do not encourage the behavior.