Wall-to-Wal-Marts for Bay Area and far beyond?

In January 2002, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, announced plans to develop 40 big-box Super Centers in California in five years. Some experts predict that Wal-Mart could increase its California presence from 191 stores today to as many as 460 stores. The nine-county Bay Area could be inundated with as many as 40 new Wal-Marts!

Wal-Mart has a track record of inducing sprawl, and of destroying local economies by driving out local entrepreneurs and community leaders. Its expansion has been met with stiff opposition from thousands of Californians across the state who don't want a Wal-Mart big box in their community.

The latest Wal-Mart big-box rejection came in Hercules. Not only did the city reject a Wal-Mart Super Center that would have violated the city's carefully worked out plans for the area, but on May 23 the City Council voted unanimously for the unprecedented step of acquiring Wal-Mart's land through eminent domain.

A recent study by retail planning consultants Cohen-Newport LLC projects that Wal-Mart could increase its stores in Contra Costa from three up to 11 in the next five years. Most would be Super Centers (99,000 to 220,000 square feet) or the newer smaller "Neighborhood Markets" (45,000 sq. ft.)

Such competition could drive out of business as many as 22 existing supermarkets that anchor neighborhood shopping centers, killing as well the hundreds of nearby smaller businesses that rely on these markets to attract customers. A 2004 supermarket-industry study by DSR Marketing Systems found that two traditional grocery stores close for every Wal-Mart Super Center that opens its doors.

This year Wal-Mart has announced that it will open over 400 new stores nationwide, mostly Super Centers. Currently the corporation is targeting California, Georgia, and Texas. Wal-Mart's practice of opening these stores as close as five miles apart has devastated the retail marketplace in many communities.

For example, in Contra Costa, Wal-Mart is expanding an existing discount store in Antioch to a Super Center, less than four miles from another Super Center site being acquired in neighboring Oakley. The Hercules site is five miles from Wal-Mart's new 250,000 sq. ft. multi-level Hilltop Mall store set to open this fall in Richmond, and 10 miles from Wal-Wart's neighboring Martinez discount store.

Similarly, in Solano County a Vallejo community site-fight group is opposing a new Wal-Mart Super Center just two miles from a new Super Center nearing completion in American Canyon. A new proposed Wal-Mart Super Center is being opposed in Fairfield, while Wal-Mart has shown interest in a new Super Center site three miles away in Suisun.

While Wal-Mart has successfully developed nearly 3,900 stores across the nation, mainly in the South and Mid-West, it has encountered intense opposition in the East and on the West Coast. This opposition is fueled by many factors.

• Wal-Mart pays low wages, burdening public healthcare systems with workers who can't afford the company's health insurance.
• Wal-Marts promote sprawl and traffic, and the company openly challenges many cities' smart-growth planning strategies.
• The stores attract crime.
• The company's predatory business practices kill both "mom and pop" and chain competitors.

Environmental organizations including the Sierra Club and Greenbelt Alliance have had to oppose Wal-Marts that would undermine local anti-sprawl and smart-growth efforts.

Martinez, Vallejo, and Alameda County have passed restrictive ordinances to slow or eliminate the expansion of big-box retailers. In April the Stanislaus County Superior Court denied Wal-Mart's challenge of a Turlock zoning ordinance prohibiting big-box retail stores containing large grocery departments.

A major fight centers on the development of a 1.2 million sq. ft. distribution center in Merced that is supposed to supply 70 - 100 Wal-Marts in the Bay Area and Central Valley. The poor air quality and traffic congestion in this community are pitted against the promise of 500 new jobs in an area plagued by high unemployment. This distribution center would increase truck traffic by 900 - 1,200 trucks a day. Currently Wal-Mart's only distribution center in Northern California is far to the north in Red Bluff.

WhatYouCanDo

To join in the Sierra Club's efforts to prevent big-box-store sprawl, contact Chapter conservation director or call (510) 848-0800, ext. 304.

To learn more about the damaging effects of Wal-Mart on communities, watch "WAL-MART: the High Cost of Low Price". This site also contains many informative links for more information about Wal-Mart and anti-Wal-Mart organizing efforts.

Jeffra Cook