WalMart To Takeover Livonia Mall Site, Plans Detroit Store?

[canuck]

Heh, I'm on my third DVD player from Walmart in the past couple years [[two were gifts, one we bought). I've gone through a shaver in the past year [[gift). The last time we got an oil change there [[mother-in-law noticed we need an oil change when shopping with wife and decided she'd take it while they shopped), the "mechanic" dumped his soda all over the interior. All we got from the guys was a shrug and a "sorry, one of the guys accidently dumped pop all over your passeneger floor because your cup holders wern't big enough to hold his big gulp".

<----- Me when my wife and mother-in-law told me.

OOps!

I can identify with that look.

I just remembered a scene from Michael Moore's Capitalism, a Love Story where an 18 year employee lost his wife [[a cake decorator at a Wal-Mart bakery who died from asthma) only to find out that Walmart had a life policy on her. They made 80 grand on her. Other companies do the same. Millions of unsuspecting americans [[canadians also?) are insured in a game of probabilities that corporations play in order to rake up cash. As Moore says, the employee are worth more dead than alive to the corporations.

But this is my favorite stat of all: The Walton family heirs are worth more than the lower 45% of the american population.

But IKEA and its fancy shmantzy european marketing bit is not very high in the quality stakes either. My wife bought a dinner service and added plates to it months later that no longer matched
the original design. The company probably found a cheaper maker somewhere in asia and didnt bother to match the design. I had already had a rocky relationship with IKEA lamps and tacky furniture. That said, europeans have a lot to answer for in the throwaway game.

[English]

Heh, I'm on my third DVD player from Walmart in the past couple years [[two were gifts, one we bought). I've gone through a shaver in the past year [[gift). The last time we got an oil change there [[mother-in-law noticed we need an oil change when shopping with wife and decided she'd take it while they shopped), the "mechanic" dumped his soda all over the interior. All we got from the guys was a shrug and a "sorry, one of the guys accidently dumped pop all over your passeneger floor because your cup holders wern't big enough to hold his big gulp".

<----- Me when my wife and mother-in-law told me.

Best story of the thread! Sorry, DetroitDad, but I had to laugh... it's so typically Wal-Mart until it's hilarious!

The Wal-Mart alarm clock that I purchased before my "awakening" [[roommate leaving books about Wal-Mart in the mail basket, etc.) is still going strong after three and a half years. So it's not all of their things... but after I read *The Wal-Mart Effect* I just felt guilty. According to that book, by getting my Cheerios from Wal-Mart, I was forcing not only small businesses, but grocery chains out of business.

Up here, you have to drive over to Ypsi to go to Wal-Mart anyway, because the NIMBY folks in Tree Town won't let one be built within city limits... there was a hue and a cry when they wanted to build a SuperCenter in Pittsfield Township. [[It ended up in Saline.)

[DetroitDad]

Best story of the thread! Sorry, DetroitDad, but I had to laugh... it's so typically Wal-Mart until it's hilarious!

The Wal-Mart alarm clock that I purchased before my "awakening" [[roommate leaving books about Wal-Mart in the mail basket, etc.) is still going strong after three and a half years. So it's not all of their things... but after I read *The Wal-Mart Effect* I just felt guilty. According to that book, by getting my Cheerios from Wal-Mart, I was forcing not only small businesses, but grocery chains out of business.

Up here, you have to drive over to Ypsi to go to Wal-Mart anyway, because the NIMBY folks in Tree Town won't let one be built within city limits... there was a hue and a cry when they wanted to build a SuperCenter in Pittsfield Township. [[It ended up in Saline.)

Good for them I guess. I spent part of my childhood in Livonia... who was once against it, but has now sold it's soul to not one, but two Walmart Supercenters less than five miles from each other!? Both are on the site of former Metro Detroit Malls. They [[Walmart) must be hitting the Detroit market hard. Chicago and AnnArbor turned them down eh? So I guess Detroit must be urban market plan C, or the result of their other stores doing so well, they seemed to be the last to realize how much metro Detroiters love chains and super centers. Many of our resident's souls were already sold when Hudson's left, so it doesn't surprise me this is what we'll be reduced to in those communities. We'll see how long Meijer and Kmart can fend them off and stay in business.

[313WX]

I just remembered a scene from Michael Moore's Capitalism, a Love Story where an 18 year employee lost his wife [[a cake decorator at a Wal-Mart bakery who died from asthma) only to find out that Walmart had a life policy on her. They made 80 grand on her. Other companies do the same. Millions of unsuspecting americans [[canadians also?) are insured in a game of probabilities that corporations play in order to rake up cash. As Moore says, the employee are worth more dead than alive to the corporations.

So what?

He should have read the contract and knew what he was getting himself into before signing it. It's not like Wal-Mart held a gun to his head and forced him against his will to sign it. If they refused to hire him because he didn't sign it, they can legally do that.

[313WX]

Chicago and AnnArbor turned them down eh? So I guess Detroit must be urban market plan C, or the result of their other stores doing so well, they seemed to be the last to realize how much metro Detroiters love chains and super centers.

Huh?

Chicago already has one Wal-Mart store and just about as many in their Metropolitan area that we have in Metro Detroit. In fact, Wal-Mart is in the process of getting approval to build a second store on the south side of Chicago.

Doesn't seem like they turned them down to me...

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...ore-city-store

[oladub]

I appreciate that WalMarts are open 24 hours a day. Day to day items such as cat food , kleenex, oatmeal, film pocessing, and socks are usually cheaper than elsewhere. Things like utensils, window shades, and garden chairs tend to be of inferior quality... even for Chinese stuff.

The return policy is pretty good at Walmart. My wife and purchased matching work shoes for the garden. The soles on my shoes developed cracks that let water in prematurely. I wrote an e-mail letter to Walmart to complain of the poor quality of those soles. My wife told me that her soles were beginning to crack too. I wasn't expecting anything. I just wanted WalMart to know of a product that didn't hold up. A couple of weeks later, we received a phone call from our local Walmart telling us to bring in those shoes with the receipt for an exchange. I found the receipt. The shoes were older than I thought; about one year old. So one night my wife and I went to WalMart to exchange our shoes. My wife had packed the shoes, so I never looked at hers. When the lady who managed the shoe department looked at our shoes, she was reluctant to give us new shoes but I told her that those soles shouldn't have broken down like that because we only used those shoes in the garden and for work around the house and besides the manager had promised an exchange. The shoe department lady did go off and find two new pairs of shoes for us. My wife told me she was so embarassed. What I didn't remember was that she had stomped out a brush fire with her shoes so the bottoms were melted. Walmart generously replaced them anyway perhaps just to get me out of the store.

[BShea]

Explain how big corporations are any different from big government in the establishment of impersonal bureaucracies. In your mind is a private Bureaucracy superior to a Governmental Bureaucracy?

Abso-frickin'-lutely.

The private sector has to be efficient to survive. Government does not. Go look up GUM, the old Soviet department store. That's what you get when government runs the retail sector: Massive lines for horribly quality goods, of which they have almost nothing of, and the goods are random rather then driven by demand.

The free-market capitalism that so many around here get angsty about in that coffeehouse radical sort of way also provided you with the computer, Internet and Internet service you're posting with.

For all the worts of our system, it doesn't require fences, walls, guns and secret police to keep people in. Rather, the rest of the world wants to come here. Compare our lower class to the rest of the planet to see how they compare.

[DetroitDad]

Attachment 6271

The Wonderland that is Walmart... not surprisingly there is space for lease in Wonderland, and the condo development is a vacant lot.

You got to admire the awe people must have had when that mall was new, it must have been filled with so much that maybe the name Wonderland Mall fit. Then you find out it all became a Walmart.

[[My picture is a bit into the sun, but that is the new "Wonderland" sign in front of the Walmart at Plymouth and Middlebelt).

[econ expat]

Livonia tried everything they could to keep out Wal-Mart.
Starting with that 1st one- at 96/Middlebelt, an abandoned Handy Andy/ Forest City. Livonia enforced restrictions on signage, building colors, lighting, anything that they thought Wal-Mart would require, but Wal-Mart just changed their look for that store. And if you saw that store, you would believe every Wal-Mart was filthy. That store was too close to an urban market, and the store was 'trashed' very rapidly.

Then Wal-Mart decides to build a SuperCenter at the Wonderland site. Well, Livonia had no desire for an even bigger eyesore than the 1st Wal-Mart. After all the court battles, they won one concession sure to dissuade Wal-Mart- no 24 hour store allowed. And Wal-Mart built anyways. That was the end of the KMart nearby, but the Target store remains. I wonder if that Wal-Mart is as profitable as that company projected. The Livonia Mall property developer 'wooed' Wal-Mart for that project. Yet without that 'anchor', maybe that mall would not have been torn down.

It is still 'recent history'- Wal-Mart built all over the country, and avoided the Detroit Metro market- that market was K-Mart's 'home base'. From western suburbs, the closest Wal-Mart for years was by Howell. Then K-Mart implodes and Wal-Mart moved in for the kill fast, didn't they?

Good for them I guess. I spent part of my childhood in Livonia... who was once against it, but has now sold it's soul to not one, but two Walmart Supercenters less than five miles from each other!? Both are on the site of former Metro Detroit Malls. They [[Walmart) must be hitting the Detroit market hard. Chicago and AnnArbor turned them down eh? So I guess Detroit must be urban market plan C, or the result of their other stores doing so well, they seemed to be the last to realize how much metro Detroiters love chains and super centers. Many of our resident's souls were already sold when Hudson's left, so it doesn't surprise me this is what we'll be reduced to in those communities. We'll see how long Meijer and Kmart can fend them off and stay in business.

[DetroitDad]

Huh?

Chicago already has one Wal-Mart store and just about as many in their Metropolitan area that we have in Metro Detroit. In fact, Wal-Mart is in the process of getting approval to build a second store on the south side of Chicago.

Doesn't seem like they turned them down to me...

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...ore-city-store

That was in response to English's post and Pam's link

Yeah, everytime you turn around these guys are getting sued by employees. No thanks.

http://walmartwatch.com/issues/labor_relations/

[DetroitDad]

Abso-frickin'-lutely.

Go look up GUM, the old Soviet department store. That's what you get when government runs the retail sector: Massive lines for horribly quality goods, of which they have almost nothing of, and the goods are random rather then driven by demand.

This sounds like Walmart. Last time I was at the Walmart Wonderland [[doesn't that sound so dreamy) they had tons of items, but were out of all the sale items for which we came for. I know the local Meijer does this too, but at least their local and the lines aren't as bad. The average wait time for me in Wonderland is twenty minutes to one hour. I feel like I'm at a #@^$%&' amusement park. At least at Meijer I can take my daughter on the horse... or does Walmart have a penny horse now too?

And at this point, I'm not sure demand dictates price at Walmart. That's the point, they can create demand for poorly made products that lasts just long enough to not be considered a scam or cheap knock off, by lowering quality.

Walmart is price over locale, quality, convenience, and definitely over experience. This is to the point where you aren't even saving money by shopping there in the long run. Yes! you save 32 cents on that razor blade today, but you're going to be replacing it in a few days, and your face is going to look like I-96 before the Super Bowl.

[DetroitDad]

My Spider sense tells me that Meijer is keenly aware of this, and that is why they are fighting with quality and price. Hence their slogan "higher standards, lower prices". Higher standards is before lower prices.

Now, Meijer could be made fun of too, but they at least buy local, and care about presentation, experiance, ethics, and not to mention the quality of their produce. Meijer might be a crumby box, but Walmart is a crummy box.

[Meddle]

WalMart = Scum

Period.

[Zacha341]

Not that stand alone auto repair shops and tire stores are perfect but I REFUSE to have any of those big box or department stores do ANYTHING on my cars. Sears forgot to tighten the lug nuts on my tires once and I almost got killed. And those overpriced Diehard batteries etc. Name brand hype junk. I may be some fluid for my car in one of these places if "pressed" but I will not have a surly, last-week-on-the-cash-register kids work on my car. Period.

Heh, I'm on my third DVD player from Walmart in the past couple years [[two were gifts, one we bought). I've gone through a shaver in the past year [[gift). The last time we got an oil change there [[mother-in-law noticed we need an oil change when shopping with wife and decided she'd take it while they shopped), the "mechanic" dumped his soda all over the interior. All we got from the guys was a shrug and a "sorry, one of the guys accidently dumped pop all over your passeneger floor because your cup holders wern't big enough to hold his big gulp".

<----- Me when my wife and mother-in-law told me.

[reddog289]

Now I had forgot how much of a pit that WalMart at 96/Middlebelt was. I went there when they opened it was clean and organized. It seemed to go downhill quick. I drive by the Wonderland location to get to the Meijer quite often. The Target at Wonderland wasn't so tidy last few times I was in there either.
If I do go to WalMarts the Taylor one seems clean to me, But then again I go there after 11 at night.

[Meddle]

^^^ I remember watching the KMart at Plymouth & Southfield go from a decent store to a pit.

[English]

Good for them I guess. I spent part of my childhood in Livonia... who was once against it, but has now sold it's soul to not one, but two Walmart Supercenters less than five miles from each other!? Both are on the site of former Metro Detroit Malls. They [[Walmart) must be hitting the Detroit market hard. Chicago and AnnArbor turned them down eh? So I guess Detroit must be urban market plan C, or the result of their other stores doing so well, they seemed to be the last to realize how much metro Detroiters love chains and super centers. Many of our resident's souls were already sold when Hudson's left, so it doesn't surprise me this is what we'll be reduced to in those communities. We'll see how long Meijer and Kmart can fend them off and stay in business.

We'll definitely see. I think Meijer can hold off for a while, judging from the out-of-stater students I know up here. They all seem to prefer Meijer to Wal-Mart.

Thanks for mentioning KMart. I grew up shopping at KMart, not at Meijer or Target, because I think there were still a few of them in the city when I was a kid. There were also still a couple of Kresge's and Woolworth's hanging by a thread.

[Meddle]

Looks like that KM is another church now. Is there anything in town besides churches? With all the churches, shouldn't Detroit be the most peaceful place in the country?

[CLAUDE G]

I rarely go to Walmart either, mainly because there is nothing in there I really need.

If I want Electronics, I aint going to Walmart because what they sell is not quality. If I want to get household goods, the prices might be good, but its really too much of a hassle to go in there and spend an hour getting what I need and having to fight the lines to check out

[Hermod]

Walmart has been successful at doing something that many others tried and failed at when Walmart was just a small local chain in the Ozarks.

Woolco
WT Grant
Nicholls
Roses
JM Fields
Caldor
Masons
Federals
Ames
Zayre

and the jury is still out on K-Mart

Most of the criticisms of Walmart can be applied to each and every one of those chains.

[rooms222]

This sounds like Walmart. Last time I was at the Walmart Wonderland [[doesn't that sound so dreamy) they had tons of items, but were out of all the sale items for which we came for. I know the local Meijer does this too, but at least their local and the lines aren't as bad. The average wait time for me in Wonderland is twenty minutes to one hour. I feel like I'm at a #@^$%&' amusement park. At least at Meijer I can take my daughter on the horse... or does Walmart have a penny horse now too?

It is a measure of how under-retailed the city of Detroit is. Both the Meijers and Walmarts that are closest to the city tend to be picked clean of both sale items and certain normal items, especially during the weekend.

I remember the old Walmart in Livonia would often be almost totally out of dish soap on Sunday evenings [[i.e. only one brand out of ten left on the shelf)........ The new Supercenters are better.

[hybridy]

i only go for the "people" watching

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?page_id=9798

[Hermod]

It is a measure of how under-retailed the city of Detroit is. Both the Meijers and Walmarts that are closest to the city tend to be picked clean of both sale items and certain normal items, especially during the weekend.

I remember the old Walmart in Livonia would often be almost totally out of dish soap on Sunday evenings [[i.e. only one brand out of ten left on the shelf)........ The new Supercenters are better.

I think the cleanliness and orderliness of a Walmart tends to be a function of their clientele. We have a Walmart neighborhood market near us that is excellent. I was talking to the manager and complimenting her on how clean and orderly her store was compared to some other neighborhood Walmarts. She said that her location [[and the fact that they only carried groceries) tended to limit her clientele to pretty much older retirees like myself. She said that older people did not mess up the displays and that they engendered a more helpful and friendly attitude on the part of the employees.

[iheartthed]

Livonia tried everything they could to keep out Wal-Mart.
Starting with that 1st one- at 96/Middlebelt, an abandoned Handy Andy/ Forest City. Livonia enforced restrictions on signage, building colors, lighting, anything that they thought Wal-Mart would require, but Wal-Mart just changed their look for that store. And if you saw that store, you would believe every Wal-Mart was filthy. That store was too close to an urban market, and the store was 'trashed' very rapidly.

Didn't they originally replace the F&M that used to be there? I believe Wal-Mart was at that corner before the Meijer opened up across the street. So how would Livonia enact restrictions on Wal-Mart that didn't affect all of those stores who came afterwards?

[detroitbred]

In today's [[ and forseeable futrure's ) economical enviornment, I will shop anywhere that allows me to feed my family and save what I can. We shouldn't thumb our noses at any chances to save, or at any jobs that are available to anyone who needs one around here. The workers at these places put their money back into the local economy too. Is there such a thing as a bad job, or place to shop these days, really??