Sprawl-Busters today announced that it hopes to generate opposition to at least 25% of the Wal-Mart superstores that the company announced it wants to build in the state of California. According to a company press release today, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. announced they hope to open as many as 40 Supercenters in the state over the next four to six years. Specific locations and dates have yet to be announced. “Wal-Mart is committed to lowering the price of groceries for California consumers, just as we have for consumers around the country,” said Tom Coughlin, president and chief executive officer of the Wal-Mart Stores division. It is Coughlin who once said:”At Wal-Mart we make dust, our competitors eat dust.” Wal-Mart currently has 125 stores in California, plus 29 Sam’s Clubs — but no supercenters. Coughlin promised “lower grocery prices for hard-working Californians”. Wal-Mart now has more than 2,740 discount stores, Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets, and more than 500 SAM’S CLUBS in the United States, plus more than 1,170 units in other countries. The press release from Wal-Mart failed to mention the 400 dead stores Wal-Mart now has on the market, including 6 empty stores in California, or 663,266 s.f. of dead stores. There are only 7 states in the nation with no Wal-Mart Superstores: Alaska, California, Hawaii, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island and Vermonth.
With 125 discount stores now in California, there is no question that soon California will become one of the leading states with dead Wal-Mart discount stores, left behind when the company opened supercenters nearby. Texas now has 45 dead stores, to lead the nation, but in two to three years, California could easily rise to number one in the nation for empty box stores — unless local officials start putting a cap on the size of superstores. For more information about size limits, search this database by the word “caps”.
