It was such a good idea — but the locals just didn’t buy it. Wal-Mart asked city officials in Lacey, Washington, to change their village center Master Plan in order to place a Wal-Mart in the middle. The village center plan as originally conceived, calls for 11 small stores mixed among houses, a school and a city park. It was only missing one thing: a Wal-Mart. The company’s proposal would have dropped the store count to 3 small stores, plus 1 Wal-Mart. According to the Olympian newspaper, the Council voted on April 11th. to leave the village plan just as it was. Councilors said a huge Wal-Mart just was not compatible with the concept of a village center. Wal-Mart’s lawyer complained that “we’ve spent these 18 months and hundreds of thousands of dollars” to give Lacey a Wal-Mart store unique from any other Wal in the state. When the lawyer asked Mayor Graeme Sackrison to reconsider the denial, the Mayor waited for any response from his council members, and hearing none, turned to Wal-Mart’s lawyer and said: “Thank you. Moving on….”
But Wal-Mart is not pulling out of Lacey. “We will do what we have to do to get the project approved,” the lawyer was quoted as saying in the Olympian. That could mean that Wal-Mart is considering appealing the decision to Thurston County Superior Court. In Wal-Mart’s case in Lacey, we learn once again that it takes a village to raze a Wal-Mart.