A Wal-Mart For Every Town?

Posted by Rickey Hayes on March 10, 2011 in Blog | No Comments

Written by
Rickey Hayes
Retail Attractions, LLC

It is official. Wal-Mart now has a store model that will fit every city, town and corner in the United States. According to building permits obtained by Bloomberg News, Wal-Mart is finally moving forward with their closely guarded secret, the Express store concept.

Construction on the 14,400 square foot store in Gentry, Arkansas, a town of 3,158 only 20 miles from the company’s headquarters, will begin on March 16. The company has also released that there will be 2 more Arkansas cities graced with an Express with construction starting in the next couple of week, and rumor has it that an existing 10,000 square foot building in a Chicago suburb is being built out as the first urban Wal-Mart Express. So what does this mean to your community?

If you are a community that has already been smiled upon by the Wal-Mart gods, you could care less. However, if you are a community that has been looked at as a potential site but just not quite made the cut: this is good news.

There are traditionally 3 formats for Wal-Mart stores:

• Supercenter: 185,000 square feet
• Discount stores: 108,000 square feet
• Neighborhood Markets: 42,000 square feet

And now introducing (drum roll, please):

• Express: 14,400 square feet

The Express will feature groceries, a pharmacy, three or four checkout counters and 75 parking spaces. They are expected to have about 12 aisles and include fresh produce, frozen food items, refrigerated food items as well as general merchandise. Wal-Mart plans to open as many as 40 units this year in rural and urban areas, and executives said to expect the first Express store to open as early as May. There are thousands of opportunities across the US for this model. All you need is leakage and 5 acres!

Retail Attractions has worked with Wal-Mart real estate and our development contacts in several of our client communities and has insight into what they need to see, hear and feel to make the decision to locate in a new community. If you would like to locate a Wal-Mart or a Wal-Mart Express in your community, we can help. Give us a call at (918) 376-6707 or contact us to put us to work for your community.