There are six Wal-Mart supercenters within 20 miles of the town of Irmo, South Carolina. There are also 366,128 s.f. of empty Wal-Mart stores in the state today. So the town of Irmo does not need its own Wal-Mart superstore — but that’s exactly what Wal-Mart has in mind. Wal-Mart is planning to build a 196,000 s.f. store on Dutch Fork Road by late 2007. Meyers Brothers Properties, from Atlanta, Georgia, filed plans for a 43-acre parcel of mostly farmland and private homes. Meyers intends to build a retail center with 36 stores anchored by Wal-Mart. “It’s indicative of the growth in our area and the attractiveness for retail,” Mayor John Gibbons told The State newspaper. Despite the fact that there is a Wal-Mart supercenter less than 2 miles away in Columbia, Town Councilor Barry Walker Sr. said the superstore will accelerate the area’s change from rural to suburban — as if that was a desirable change. “Traffic’s going to be hell,” said one small business owner, whose home is on one side of the Wal-Mart, and whose business is on the other. Irmo’s Town Administrator told the newspaper that 600 people would work at the Irmo Wal-Mart — a figure that probably doubles the real number. He said the town will get an “extra $500,000” a year in taxes and business license fees — before counting lost revenues from other stores and businesses that will close — and without counting the extra police, fire, roads, water and sewer costs to the town. The Irmo Town Council just annexed the shopping center land into the town this month, but to do so, they had to annex a 100-foot-wide strip of land, two-miles long, that runs along railroad tracks to connect the site with the existing town limits. One 76-year-old resident who lives next to the superstore site, summed up what is happening to little Irmo, when he told the newspaper, “I used to know everybody out here. Now, I know no one.” Many residents in Irmo are upset by this latest saturation of big box stores, and sent Sprawl-Busters the following report: “The Wal-Mart site backs up to a 400 home subdivision and is primarily surrounded by residential homes, small local merchants and schools. This project was kept on the “hush-hush” and the public was not aware of the proposed annexation and re-zoning. The vote by the Irmo Town Council was not unanimous however, Mayor Gibbons voted against this.The vote was 4-1. Our organization is in the process of rallying our friends and neighbors as well as local merchants to fight this battle as well as attempting to retain a Land Use Attorney. A Wal-mart super center is certainly not compatible with the neighborhood and we feel it will be more detrimental to the community in the long run. With Wal-mart comes increased crime, destruction of the local economy, and even more cheap foreign merchandise. Irmo also does not have the infrastructure to support the mammoth capitalist predator that is Wal-Mart!”
One of the definitions of isthmus is “A narrow strip of land which connects two larger masses of land.” The town of Irmo had to annex two miles of land along a railroad track before getting to the Wal-Mart site. So this is truly “the isthmus of Wal-Mart.” The Mayor was right to object to this kind of gerrymandering of land to satisfy an out of state developer. This parcel is surrounded by residential homes, which will lose value, and the town has not even studied the numbers to get realistic impacts of this project on the economy of Irmo. The grocery stores will be hurt the most, but there is no market need for a store nearly 4 times the size of a football field, when there are already 6 Wal-Mart supercenters within 20 miles. For local contacts fighting Wal-Mart in Irmo, email info@sprawl-busters.com. To see the group’s new website, go to www.ballentinefirst.com
