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Concord Mills Wal-Mart


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God I hope Concord is smart enough not to allow this. Actually, I hope the entire metro is smart enough not to allow any new Walmarts.

There is no way that area could handle that too. I'm also hoping that the proposed Walmart near IKEA is turned down as well.

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Walmart Mitosis.

I wonder if Walmart will actually act as competition to the mall. It seems absurd to build that much more retail space there, but I guess people flock to absurdity.

I'd actually prefer the Walmart in U-City to be near the LRT than stuffed away in a mega-strip with 4 or 5 other big boxes, a trek away from any major rail plans. Walmart is transit-supporting because its target market is similar to that of transit riders, and it is such a high-volume kind of place. Who knows, maybe they will pack so much retail square footage onto Concord Mills Blvd, they'll have no choice but to build park and rides and transit.

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Wow, this is horrible. I know exactly where that is (right across the road from the mall) and Concord Mills Blvd and Derita Road are packed already. To me this would be a bad spot anyway for a Walmart, there aren't a lot of homes/apartments in the immediate vicinity and the same could be said about the Ikea location. Plus it could start a trend for retailers in the University Place to pull out and leave, I believe Gap has already left, this would certainly accelerate it and we could be left with a huge dying or abandon Charlotte (a la North Tryon corridor).

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Wow, this is horrible. I know exactly where that is (right across the road from the mall) and Concord Mills Blvd and Derita Road are packed already. To me this would be a bad spot anyway for a Walmart, there aren't a lot of homes/apartments in the immediate vicinity and the same could be said about the Ikea location. Plus it could start a trend for retailers in the University Place to pull out and leave, I believe Gap has already left, this would certainly accelerate it and we could be left with a huge dying or abandon Charlotte (a la North Tryon corridor).
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Who knows, maybe they will pack so much retail square footage onto Concord Mills Blvd, they'll have no choice but to build park and rides and transit.

Park and rides wouldn't do much good in that area. I work in the area and my wife and I also live in the area, on any given day, going to dinner or lunch is a nightmare. We've started going in the back way, down Derita Road, or Weddington Road depending on where we're headed. As soon as this Wal-Mart is placed right by Derita Road I expect the backway to be way under capacity too. Especially with all of the new residential being built along the Speedway Blvd. extension past Derita.

Those who shop at Wal-Mart bring it upon themselves. Wal-Mart wouldn't build their ghastly stores if people didn't support them with their wallets. I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart in years and I have no problem finding what I need. I had switched to Target but the reality is that we don't even go to Target much anymore (maybe once every couple of months). It is interesting that we complain about a Wal-Mart being built in our neighborhood and then get in our cars and travel to the next neighborhood to shop at their Wal-Mart.

To me this would be a bad spot anyway for a Walmart, there aren't a lot of homes/apartments in the immediate vicinity and the same could be said about the Ikea location.

That isn't true. There are hundreds upon hundreds of homes in the vicinity, most are brand new with many more under construction. Take a drive down the new Speedway Blvd. extension past Derita and you'll end up in an endless spaghetti of new homes.

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Does this mean that Wal-Mart will also close its store on US 29 (beside Phillip Morris)? It's only four years old! If not, why would it need to build another store a mere two miles away?

I highly doubt it. I saw a permit not long ago for some remodeling of offices at that location.

Here are the details of the permit:

31.4 acres

199,723 gsf retail space

Mutiple PIN's - 4589-57-8323, 4589-57-9341, 4589-66-1428, 4589-66-4167 and 4589-76-4473

Scheduled for P & Z March 20, 2007

Case # S-05-2007

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I said this about IKEA but there appears to be a double standard here when it comes to shopping. We get posts where people love South Park but castigate Walmart even though there is no difference except the demographic they serve. I disgree with this development because it is bad development, not because they are a store that mainly serves lower income people. Not everyone can afford to drop a bunch of money on "crap" at Crate and Barrel.
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With all due respect, the IKEA store will be the only one of its kind between Atlanta and Washington. Further, IKEA actually treats its employees with respect and pays them a living wage (good health care benefits being a biggie). I've never heard of IKEA locking its employees in stores at night or not paying them for overtime. Can't say that about Wal-Mart. Also, IKEA has never put entire small town downtowns out of business, nor has it been the reason grocery chains exit retail markets when it comes to town leaving empty big-box carcases behind.

But back to the topic at hand. There will be THREE Wal-Mart SuperCenters in an area of just over five square miles. Add to that the fact that Wal Mart still has a vacant store in Concord and will give us another one in University City, and most people would agree that it's reason reason enough for the area to NOT have another store. How many Wal-Mart skeletons do we have to endure? At least Target is adding onto its University City store instead of pulling out and building on a greenfield site.

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There isn't a vacant Walmart in Concord that i know of. The original Walmart on 29 before the Super WM was built has been a Big Lots for the last five or six years. It seems busy most of the time. The old Winn-Dixie in the same shopping center is still vacant, that may be what you are thinking of.

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Personally, I agree that this is complete oversaturation for this many Wal-Marts to be located in this small distace though I do tend to think they will close one store because why in the world would they want to pay the expensive operating costs for these stores unless they have projections that say this area will need three of their supercenters in the coming years.

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I think that these three Super Wal-Marts will all be successful because, in a sense, they will be serving different people. The store by Concord Mills will serve the mall crowd and all of the tourists that come to spend a weekend to go shopping or visit the speedway. This will occur especially on race weeks where people will stock up while they stay at their campers by the speedway b/c many tourists don't know where the nearest wal-mart is. The store by Ikea will serve the UCity crowd and the University crowd. The store in Concord will keep on serving the residents of Concord and Harrisburg who dont want to deal with mall traffic or Ikea traffic. So, I know it is terrible to have so many wal-marts in such a short distance, but IMO I think they will all be successful.

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