Cave Creek, Arizona has 10 Wal-Marts within 20 miles, half of which are superstores. There are two giant superstores just 12 and 13 miles away in Phoenix. The tiny town of Cave Creek had a 2007 population of 5,120 — about one-tenth of what it takes to keep a Wal-Mart supercenter alive. But according to the Arizona Republic, Wal-Mart has not finished saturating this area with stores. The retailer has set up neighborhood meetings in Cave Creek in May to let residents know of its plans for their proposed store, located — ironically — on Carefree Highway. Already there are opponents to the project, who charge that the superstore will make traffic congestion at the busy intersection even worse, and take away from the town’s rural character. Cave Creek promotes itself as “the True Arizona” experience, with its “eclectic shopping, art galleries and the unrivaled beauty of the Sonoran Desert.” The town is trying to attract tourist dollars with its “rodeos, country and western dancing, museums, parks and nature preserves, hiking and biking and old mining tours.” But there is nothing very eclectic or beautiful about another big box Wal-Mart. The retailer must first get the zoning on its 20 acre property changed from residential to commercial. The Cave Creek Town Council is slated to take that vote at its June 15th meeting. To create a supportive political climate, Wal-Mart has to soften up the voters with a few neighborhood meetings, which will begin on May 6th. “The meetings are to inform the community about what we’ve submitted,” a Wal-Mart spokesman explained. “We will answer specific questions.” The Arizona Republic newspaper admitted that Wal-Mart’s proposal is “expected to be met with opposition.” Wal-Mart seems to have a good lock on town officials, who have already expressed support for the superstore, and the sales tax revenue they believe the town will gain. Wal-Mart claims their supercenter will generate between 300 and 350 jobs. At 115,000 s.f., the project is smaller than the average footprint of a superstore. “We have supercenters that are 100,000 s.f.,” the Wal-Mart spokesman said, “and we have supercenters that are 220,000 s.f.” Wal-Mart has described the store’s architecture as “modernist,” and will paint the skin of the store with a “desert color palette,” according to The Republic. The town’s manager is already in Wal-Mart’s pocket too. He said Wal-Mart’s plan meets the town’s ordinances — even before the project has been before any town boards. “The store looks like it’s not a typical Wal-Mart store,” the Manager explaind. “It’s going to be responsive to the Cave Creek environment and the Cave Creek lifestyle.”
The ‘eclectic’ desert lifestyle does not seem a good fit with the suburban concrete image of a Wal-Mart superstore. The scale of the store, which will be bigger than two football fields, is definitely out of scale and uncharacteristic of a rural Arizona community of less than 5,200 people. Cave Creek can enjoy all the amenities of big city life being a suburb of Phoenix. Area groups, like the Black Mountain Conservancy and the Desert Foothills Land Trust are not likely to warm up to the idea of paving over 20 acres of land for suburban sprawl. Tourists who come to the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area to see the wildflowers, will not cheer the coming of yet another over-stuffed Wal-Mart. Readers are urged to email Cave Creek Mayor Vincent Francia at [email protected] with the following message: “Dear Mayor Francia, Unless you’ve been living in a cave for years, you must know about the economic destruction that follows a Wal-Mart supercenter. Your small town doesn’t have the population base to support even a medium-sized Wal-Mart supercenter. Studies show that for every supercenter that opens, two other grocery stores close. The store being proposed for Cave Creek is bigger than two football fields. This is totally out of character with what your town describes as its eclectic, desert character. You’re trying to sell tourists on that cowboy Ho Down feeling, the beauty of the Sonora, not the concrete and asphalt of a supercenter. The land Wal-Mart wants is not correctly zoned. The people who live around this parcel anticipated that it would be used for residential purposes, and they made plans based on that land having a residential use. Wal-Mart is asking for not just a rezoning to commercial use — but rezoning for the largest commercial building in the history of tiny Cave Creek. This store will not be buffered in any way from surrounding land uses, and it will harm the residential value of any properties nearby. This is a wholly incompatible use dropped in the middle of other land uses, and will harm all of them. The only thing that will increase in Cave Creek will be traffic and crime. I urge you to reject the rezoning for this parcel. Make companies like Wal-Mart find land that is already properly zoned, and will not harm other property owners.”
