Another Michigan town has stared down the prospect of a Wal-Mart supercenter in the past two weeks. First, Charlevoix, Michigan dodged the bullet, now Wal-Mart plans in Jackson, Michigan have also been scrubbed. The Jackson, Michigan Citizen Patriot newspaper announced June 4th that Wal-Mart has pulled the plug on its plan to build a second store in East Jackson. “We’ve been notified that they’re not going to proceed,” East Jackson Superintendent Bruce Van Eyck told the paper. Van Eyck said the retail giant notified the district it was terminating its agreement to buy school property because it was not able to purchase all of the properties it needed to build the store. Wal-Mart was unavailable for comment — which means they did not wish to speak on the subject. The company is already building a 206,000 s.f. supercenter at the Westwood Mall in East Jackson. Wal-Mart had agreed to buy 11.67 acres of East Jackson Community Schools land on N. Dettman Road for $1.29 million. Two of three home owners on N. Dettman Road had already agreed to sell their houses. Wal-Mart also was trying to negotiate purchase agreements with three businesses, including an auto parts store, a shoe store and a fast-food restaurant. Someone obviously held out, killing the plan. School officials lamented the loss, saying that the deal would have brought the district revenues for long-term projected needs and improved its tax base. School officials did not comment on the overall financial impact that two Wal-Mart supercenters would have had on the community, nor whether the school district had even bothered to try to do the math. Looks like school officials didn’t try to educate themselves about the overall impact their sell-out to Wal-Mart would have caused.
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