Walmart Neighborhood Market...Isn't that an oxymoron?

Walmart is actively working and negotiating on approximately 17 grocery locations in the Portland/Vancouver metropolitan area.  Many of the "Neighborhood Market" locations have already been leased and/or purchased and Walmart is completing their due diligence before making any public announcements to avoid the inventible neighborhood resistance to the world's biggest retailer.  Walmart has plans to open both suburban and urban stores that will be approximately 40,000 +/- square foot in size.  The first grocery store will open along Highway 26 in the former Ashley Furniture store site at NW Cornell and 173rd in Beaverton.  Many of the new store locations will be in closed grocery store sites that already allow the permitted use and thus, no neighborhood approval will be needed or asked.   According to several local real estate sources Walmart has leased or purchased the following locations:

• Raleigh Hills: Ex-Zupan's@Beav.-Hillsdale Hwy & Apple Way
• Lake Grove:   Ex-Whole Foods @Boones Ferry Rd & Jean Rd.
• West Linn:     Ex-Lamb's Thriftway @ Hwy 43 & Hidden Valley 
• Gresham:      Ex-QFC @ 182nd & Powell
• Gresham:      Ex-Food 4 Less @ Powell & Burnside
• Beaverton:     Ex-Haggen's @ SW Murray & 147th
• Vancouver:    Ex-Fred Meyer @ 4th Plain & Grand
• Vancouver:    Ex-Winco @ Hwy 500 & Thurston Way
• Oregon City:   Molalla Ave. & S. Beavercreek (land parcel)
• Salmon Creek: 134th & I-5 (land parcel)
• Tigard:           SW Greenburg Rd. & Hwy 217
• Oak Grove:     Ex-G.I. Joe's @ SE McLoughlin & Concord

Also rumored are negotiations for several close-in urban locations in north and southeast Portland...SE Belmont and North Williams...imagine those neighborhood meetings!

Is it a "Neighborhood Market" if it is based in Bentonville, Arkansas?  

Comments

[Tim Lee]

Thanks for letting the neighborhoods know. All Portland needs is more cheap crap from Walmart. Give them hell Urban Works!!

[Steve Lynn]

Good inside skinny. We need to keep Walmart out of Portland's urban neighborhoods. So many great small businesses need support.
Please keep all of us updated if you hear more information about possible Walmart stores.

[babcock]

Why should we keep them out of Portland? They have every right to be here. And we have every right not to shop there.

[Steve Lynn]

Of course Walmart has a right...But urban blight has consequences that brings declining values in real estate and that equates to lost jobs. KEEP IT LOCAL

[Melissa Frank]

I have been wondering why Walmart is advertising their "employment is a good thing" message so much lately. I guess we all know why now. So sick of the PR blitz! Too bad they can't say the same thing about the products they sell.

What real estate company is helping them open stores in Portland?

[Warner]

Thanks for sharing the news Urban Works people. Time to organize real resistance in our neighborhoods. North Portland don't play that!

[EVO]

What's everyone's beef with Walmart? I love getting cheap made-in-China crap for my kids there. Its like two for one almost. Plus they sell amunition, which Target doesn't, so its like one-stop shopping.

[Kathleen Clement]

Wal-Mart has and always will be a blight on their new communities. Just take a look at what happened in So.Cal. and their local businesses when Wal-Mart came into their communities. Local businesses died and communities were financially strained from Wal-Mart's employees drain on local public services.

Now the Supreme Court says Wal-Mart "Probably" discriminates against Women BUT women must sue them in a more case similar fashion. More suits to follow!

Do we want this kind of Business in our Community. Oregon City is a land parcel request not a replacement store location.... LET'S FIGHT THIS....

[Christopher Robinson]

@Kathleen Clement

I'm not sure where you are getting your information but I'd like to set a few things straight.

1. By definition a "blighted" community is one that suffers from urban decay, depopulation, and high unemployment. Therefore, Wal-Mart building a new store would be the exact opposite of this.

2. The Supreme Court ruled on whether a gender-bias suit could proceed as a class action. It did not rule or make opinion on whether or not there was discrimination. In fact, to do so would be a violation of their ethics.

3. I am almost positive you have not conducted any sort of survey to Oregon City residents to find out if they actually want a Wal-Mart in their community or not. Remember, the loudest voices do not necessarily represent the majority of voices.

[Woodstock]

A job is a job. They aren't putting these in quaint little neighborhoods. They are putting them in preexisting shopping centers. Empty buildings need filling. I don't particularly care if it is Walmart. At least they are putting a classier version of their store in what is, currently, vacant husks of old stores.

[Biz supporter]

Walmart is converting empty buildings to jobs. That is good. Why don't some of you snobs go buy some of the buildings and open a local store as an alternative? Or do you just like to whine instead of providing a better solution?

[marc nassar]

wall mart employees make so little, they qualify for public assistance. Their products are fossil fuel based because they travel thousands of miles, made by slave like labor, whose subsistence economies were destroyed for export manufacturing. The blight caused by Wal Mart is the closing of surrounding businesses that are undercut by the false "community" or "neighborhood" marketing, while the products inside are going to be the same mass purchased, cheaply made, underpriced products whose prices do NOT represent the true cost of production, causing over consumption, environmental destruction, and poverty across the globe. Keep 'em OUT!!

[Allan Van Vliet]

Walmart is one of the most evil and harmful corporations on earth. It is literally ranked. Absurd hiring/firing/promoting practices, unreasonable compensation, outrageous global human rights abuses, economically damaging corporate bullying, and truly terrible products. I will take an crumbling empty building in my neighborhood over a Walmart any day of the week.

Someone up there said "jobs are jobs". Nope. These jobs do far more harm than good to the community and to the individual.

And just so we're clear, Walmart's low prices come at a very high cost. To everyone. Including those people who shop there because of the low prices... As they say, nothing's free.

[DVH]

So first of all I couldn't care less about WalMart. I have bought some items there that rang my bell they were so inexpensive, and as a single woman at the time, that was my bottom line fellas. As a matter of fact, to everyone who calls everything WM sells 'cheap', I have to tell you all, I still have my items and they're still in great shape. So........do your homework first. Second, again, I'm no big WM fan. I haven't shopped there in years. But I don't like how it's become the 'chic' store to trash and hate. Oh please, everyone's singing the same song and it's getting old, think of some new, appropriate lyrics. A} The 'they mistreat their employees!!!!'.......yawn. Pardon me, but I've worked for many major retail chains and corporations in my time and guess what people,,,,,,,THEY ALL TREATED ME LIKE CRAP!!! Benefits taken away each year, raises that were more insulting than rewarding, even dangerous working conditions. That's the way a lot of balls bounce in the working world today, and that's all there is to it. WM did not corner the market on treating their employees bad. Far from it. B} Why isn't anyone jumping on Amazon, who has had a huge hand in bankrupting Borders and Barnes & Noble isn't far behind. Anything you want to buy you can get at Amazon AND it's cheaper than just about anywhere else. Granted they probably do not treat their employees bad, hooray for them. They are still mowing down the competition and it's far from over. Within 10 years most of the population will be buying exclusively from Amazon--you can truly get *anything* there! C} 'Mom and Pop' business. Ok how many of you who are crying over the mom and pop businesses 1} buy what you want at Amazon BECAUSE the mom and pop businesses are more expensive, and 2}, are drinking something from Starbucks right now? Come ON now!!! Starbucks has obliterated the little coffee shops and if you've read some of the stories, not in a 'oh here's a million dollars let us buy you out' sort of way. No no no no no, Starbucks has no qualms setting up shop RIGHT NEXT to a tiny coffee cart or cafe and eating them for lunch the next day. And yet, no one vilifies them the way they do WM. Again, I'm no WM fan. Some of the people who shop there frighten me. But I also know they're not alone in the 'big man mow down small man' world, and I refuse to look silly by jumping on the 'it's chic to hate WM' bandwagon. Jeez so be the change you want to see, right? Put down your Starbucks, and go buy everything you need at 10 different locally owned small business non chain stores. Get off your keyboard and show your support then. I'm willing to bet there's a lot of room for improvement on the biggest complainers here.

[DVH]

Oops, a p.s.............Target is now in the same league as WM as far as prices are concerned---oh what, did you all think WM is the only store that buys from China??? Everything you buy, from anywhere, unless you make that special effort, is from China or India now and you all know it. But Target has been called 'The trendier WM'. I knew someone who worked for Target, and they were not Blue Ribbon employers. So. To recap, nearly every item Target sells is from China or India. They're not prize winning employers. The people who work at Target make minimum wage {as do the WM employees}. They're WAY undercutting the competition. So what's the difference between them and WM then? Somebody? Anybody? Yea. Target's color is red, WM's is blue. That's the big difference. Maybe it'll be chic to say you hate Target in 2012. As you're drinking a Starbuck's coffee. Wearing your shirt made from China.

[Jorj_X_McKie]

babcock said: 'Why should we keep them out of Portland?' The list of reasons is endless. 'They have every right to be here.' And we have every right to 'fight the blight' to protect and guide our built environment.

[Joann Kish]

To: You snobs who say "KEEP WALMART OUT!". There are more of us out here who say "YEA!, WE NEED A WALMART STORE HERE." Why would you deny low income people, seniors on a fixed income, out of a job people and us that just need to save a buck, access to lower cost groceries? What is the matter with you? All you have to do is simply not shop there.

[mulberry alexa handbags]

He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs.

[NCJD]

If you read the investigative book titled "The WalMart Effect" you will never set foot in one of their stores again. This book explains how WalMart does business, and how many American workers have lost their jobs due to WalMart.

[kenny]

If one came into my neighborhood, in my business districts... I can guarantee all hell would break loose. There would be picketing daily for over a year. Guaranteed. I know my community and this would simply not fly.

The big issue, besides undercutting the local stores and paying folks abysmally low wages.. is that they LOWER our home values.

That is the last thing, we, as working class folks trying to get by need right now. Our home os 60k under water... add a Mini Walmart? I can guarantee it will NOT help our housing values. We would WALK. It would create a low buck feel to the area, not the local style the folks here are attracted to, and appeals to those who shop for a home here.

[VeryPoorDavid]

I have lived in my SE PDX neighborhood for 6 years. During that time 2 Albertson's, a Safeway, and a Target have closed. Wal-Mart didn't cause that. My only choice right now is Freddies. I'm thrilled with the idea of choice. Aren't you all in favor of Pro-Choice?