Wal-Mart got poked in the eye this week in Buckeye, Arizona. The vote was 4-3 to reject a Wal-Mart supercenter. The town council voted to reject an appeal by Vestar Development company, who sought to build a supercenter in Buckeye. According to the Arizona Republic, the Town Council was concerned about traffic, maintenance of the area, and Wal-Mart itself. Mayor Dusty Hull, who opposed the Wal-Mart, said the town needed more time to fully prepare itself for such a megastore and the town costs that would accompany such a huge scale project. “I would like to have a Wal-Mart store, but I think this whole thing happened too quickly,” the Mayor equivocated. “If you just start saying ‘yes,’ you can’t clean things up down the line. We’ll do it right, and we’ll do it right the first time.” Vestar is proposing to build a pretentious “Sundance Towne Center”, which would include a Wal-Mart, Lowes, Office Max, Petsmart, Linens ‘n Things and Ross Dress for Less. You could call this a big box mall, but never a “Towne Center”, complete with the old-fashioned spelling of “Towne”, as in “Towne Sprawlcenter.” The developer warned that the whole project is at risk if the Wal-Mart is not approved. “They all go hand in hand. Junior boxes won’t sign leases without the major anchor,” a Vestar representative said.
Another Wal-Mart bites the dust. But how long will it be before they come back to the town with the very same proposal? For now, there’s no room in Buckeye for Wal-Mart.
