WalMart To Takeover Livonia Mall Site, Plans Detroit Store?

[agirlintheD]

That F&M was a dump too. I couldn't agree more with econ expat, that WalMart was filthy. I could never understand how people could throw items on the floor when they were done with them. Were they raised in the wild? I can remember driving past there a few years ago on Black Friday and the line was around the building [[Huge Livonia Police presence. We had heard later that the MP's were on hand to keep order). I'm sorry, there is nothing I "need" that badly or is that much of a "deal" that I'm waiting in those kinds of lines with the possibility that I could get trampled to death when the doors are unlocked. The Wonderland Walmart [[on the few, very few occasions I have been there) is not much of an improvement. The lines are awful and the condition/state of the store wasn't much different than the original location...just a newer, bigger store to trash! UGH!

[jackie5275]

But the real knee-jerker in all of this is Wal-Mart just so happens to be "interested" in Detroit after Meijer announces they're opening a location in the city.

That may be the only reason why. Wal-Mart's M.O. has always been to plunk themselves in a rural/semi-rural area with no competition or competition that can be easily stomped to death quickly upon their arrival. It's only been in the past decade where they've started to get brave enough [[big enough?) to start treading into more urban areas where they won't be the only game in town.

[iheartthed]

That F&M was a dump too. I couldn't agree more with econ expat, that WalMart was filthy. I could never understand how people could throw items on the floor when they were done with them. Were they raised in the wild? I can remember driving past there a few years ago on Black Friday and the line was around the building [[Huge Livonia Police presence. We had heard later that the MP's were on hand to keep order). I'm sorry, there is nothing I "need" that badly or is that much of a "deal" that I'm waiting in those kinds of lines with the possibility that I could get trampled to death when the doors are unlocked. The Wonderland Walmart [[on the few, very few occasions I have been there) is not much of an improvement. The lines are awful and the condition/state of the store wasn't much different than the original location...just a newer, bigger store to trash! UGH!

I agree that both the Wal-Mart and F&M were dumps. The only other Wal-Mart that I have ever been into was a dump too [[the one in Ypsilanti). So I don't think it was entirely the Livonia zoning that created the situation...

ETA: Actually, I have been to three Wal-Marts. The third is the one in Baltimore, and that place was indeed a dump too.

[econ expat]

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?

I don't know how/why any different zoning laws applied to the Wal-Mart property on I-96, but at least the city tried. The Wal-Mart went in where the Handy Andy was, next door to the F&M. F&M's were closing all over the area, but that one did a good business, until....

There wasn't much opposition to the Meijer. DRC closing was a done deal and the developers hurried to get Meijer, KMart or Target interested as anchors to deter any interst from Wal-Mart there. It was not destined to be a Laurel Park or Somerset, but they wanted to attract more stable tenants for the other stores.

It is curious, though. Meijer might have made some design changes for city approval. But it is still a 24 hour store. It was built after the Wal-Mart on 96 opened, but well before the Wonderland Wal-Mart.

[DetroitPlanner]

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?

At the time the land across the street was zoned differently as it was a racetrack. It was most likely agriculture. It is now most likely mixed use/PUD as the parcel contains several different uses.

Zoning is a planning tool. Ultimately it is up to the planning commission to enforce it. Some commissions are on the ball, others are not. A planning commissioner is typically appointed, and the appointments change over time. Not everyone appointed to planning commissions are planners. If I sat on the commission, I'd make the company follow the letter of the law, then try to see if I could get them to go the extra mile in mitigation of current conditions, landscaping, and make sure the store don't look ugly. Unfortunately once its approved, planning ends and its up to others to enforce things.

[Pam]

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??

There are other choices though besides Wal-mart. Target, Meijer, Dollar Stores, Salvation Army etc. Wal-mart does stuff like make workers punch out but keep working. I would say that is a bad job. In fact, making people work for free is called slavery.

[Det_ard]

Meijer started their superstore [[Thrifty Acres) concept in 1962, the same year S.S. Kresge opened the first KMart in Garden city. Those big boxes have been putting Michigan mom and pop stores out of business for 48 years now.

Wal*Mart has only been doing it in Michigan for a decade or so. So to protest the scum-sucking leeches that are Meijer and KMart, I only shop at Wal*Mart now [[can't find a mom-n-pop).

[Sstashmoo]

The Livonia Walmart sucks. That store is so overcrowded. I went there over the weekend, what a clusterF.

[Danny]

There is a Super EVIL Wal-Mart in Wonderland Village Shopping Center on the corner of Plymouth Rd. and Middlebelt Rd. Now Those execs want to build another Wal-Mart just 3 miles away. What a bunch of nuts!

[Danny]

Meijer started their superstore [[Thrifty Acres) concept in 1962, the same year S.S. Kresge opened the first KMart in Garden city. Those big boxes have been putting Michigan mom and pop stores out of business for 48 years now.

Wal*Mart has only been doing it in Michigan for a decade or so. So to protest the scum-sucking leeches that are Meijer and KMart, I only shop at Wal*Mart now [[can't find a mom-n-pop).

Yes, the big box strores are destroying the mom and pop retail way of the life in Michigan. Corporate sprawl has become the new mom and pop in our American society. They are the 'soylent green' for our needs. Some small town American city, village and townships are in the process of boycotting those megalomarts but ended up losing.

[Danny]

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.

quote=313WX;150883]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.[/quote]


Very unethical indeed that corporations can use employees lives and the insurance policies as their personal cash cow. People use people.

[neighbor]

Yes, the big box strores are destroying the mom and pop retail way of the life in Michigan. Corporate sprawl has become the new mom and pop in our American society. They are the 'soylent green' for our needs. Some small town American city, village and townships are in the process of boycotting those megalomarts but ended up losing.

Weren't Kresge, Meijer, and Wal-Mart all one store family businesses at one time or another? I think so.

Consumers chose to destroy the small businesses not the Big Box stores.

Once a Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or Home Depot lands in your neighborhood you still have a choice of where to shop. These stores only offer you another option.

[Hypestyles]

with the understanding about Wal-Mart's anti-union phobias & tactics, I hope that they do set up shop somewhere in urban detroit-- as an anchor store for a larger retail development, somewhere.. of course they may be waiting until all this "right-sizing" of neighborhoods gets underway.. we'll see..

[Novine]

"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."

Come on Shea, for a guy who works for a "business" publication, why are you here peddling Comic Book Capitalism? First, the "Internet" was largely developed with government tax dollars. It's only in the last 15 years or so that the corporate interests jumped into the Internet game. Second, since when was the choice between untrammeled corporate excess as exemplified by Wal-Mart and Stalin Gulags? There's a whole range of countries in this world where people live pretty good lives that have democratically elected government. Since you offered the challenge, why don't you tell us how our lower class compare to places like Sweden or France or Germany or Canada? Worse off? Better off? It's not a choice between third world living and USA! USA! Mr. Shea and trotting out that false choice makes you look like more of a hack and less of an objective reporter.

[BShea]

... trotting out that false choice makes you look like more of a hack and less of an objective reporter.

So you offer up the choice between the U.S. and Sweden? You accuse me of offering a false choice with what would be another false choice, eh?

Do yourself a favor and educate yourself about Sweden's economic troubles since it decoupled entitlements from job requirements. Read up on Sweden's growing social problems, and how about 3 million people work to support the rest of the population.

Maybe you'd like the U.S. to adopt Sweden's policy of having an official state religion, too? Or restricting the press?

Of course, if you don't want to work and prefer to live on other people's money, Sweden in the place to be. Until it collapses like Greece [[with Portugal, Ireland and Italy not too far behind).

You don't want to deal with my question because you know the answer: Our system simply works better than all of the others. Ask someone in the Third World if they want to live in Stockholm or in Miami, and see what the answer is. Sweden and Germany are not global powers; the United States is. Our dynamic society has been quite the force for prosperity -- rather than the forced egalitarianism of socialism that simply spreads misery around rather than offering hope of advancement.

Second, since when was the choice between untrammeled corporate excess as exemplified by Wal-Mart and Stalin Gulags?

Do you have to resort to distortion to make a point? I wrote about the failure of collectivism as personified by GUM versus the private sector in the U.S. being free to make competitive choices. And the wider point is that collectivism requires walls and guns to keep people in. It's counter to human nature [[except among academics and the staggeringly naive).

We get it: You dislike the economic system made our nation great, and you long for Europe's socialism [[which is paid for by American tax dollars). We've been over it.

And you also know that the Internet was developed by the biggest bogeymen of all: The military-industrial complex. And does it matter if it's only been 15 years since commercial Internet service has been around? The government isn't providing it ... entrepreneurs enabled by the free market did.

makes you look like more of a hack and less of an objective reporter.

I'm speaking for myself, not as a reporter writing about economic theory.

[BShea]

And for balance: News on Sweden's rebound in the last year from the massive collapse. The Swedes were wise to avoid entanglements with Greece: http://swedishwire.com/economy/4746-...-than-expected

[BShea]

I liked the one about Walter Sobchak better.

Me, too. It originally was going to be Ron Swanson, but "Parks & Rec" isn't popular enough yet to make the reference work.

[Jimaz]

...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....

They're called Dead Peasant Policies.

[313WX]

Very unethical indeed that corporations can use employees lives and the insurance policies as their personal cash cow. People use people.

I completely agree. I didn't say what they were doing was ethical or moral, but then again no one said American Capitalism was all about ethics & morals.

[rooms222]

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?

When that original Walmart opened up, it actually was open from 7 AM - 9 PM. This is noteworthy because even in the smallest town, regular Walmarts were open until 10 PM. I think they were afraid of armed robbery. Walmart was somewhat new to major urban centers at that time, especially outside of the South and Central areas of the country. Because it did not have groceries, it did not even try to stay open late.

In some major markets, including Atlanta and Indianapolis, Walmart started to experiment with 24 hour operations. At the same time, more Supercenters were being built.

The Meijer then opened, and Walmart started looking at putting in a Supercenter. Target was also considering a Super Target, but eventually passed. That is when the restrictions were place upon them by Livonia.......

[rooms222]

I agree that both the Wal-Mart and F&M were dumps. The only other Wal-Mart that I have ever been into was a dump too [[the one in Ypsilanti). So I don't think it was entirely the Livonia zoning that created the situation...

ETA: Actually, I have been to three Wal-Marts. The third is the one in Baltimore, and that place was indeed a dump too.

Non-rural Walmarts [[both urban and suburban) often are missing the things that are good about Wal Mart besides low prices. Rural Walmarts often have less employee turnover so you can actually know the employees that work there. They often are cleaner and seen as more of a participant in the community. They often price match other store's sale items in the entry display. These are missing in the non-rural stores, for the most part.

When I went to the store in Bloomington, IN, the entire front display coming in was items on sale at other stores where they would put up the ad from Target or Kmart and lower the price even more. They had stacks of all the ads from the Sunday paper and offered to price match any item on sale.

The managers and employees in the Metro Detroit stores often seem more frazzled and overworked than I have seen in rural areas and smaller cities.

[Bella]

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

[Huggybear]

You have all expressed your bitching and moaning, but now I say unto you that before someone's Corktown rooster has crowed three times, you will shop at a Wal-Mart located at Michigan and Trumbull.

At first, you'll decry it. Too low class. Too hillbilly. God, what a waste of a prime site. Why can't we have an all-organic $4-a-loaf bakery? You'll light up DetroitYes, Facebook, Twitter, anything that can take a text.

Cock-a-doodle-doo

Next, when it's open, you'll sneak inside, furtively buy a few things, and hope no one sees you. At least no one you know. Hoi polloi, of course, will shop there. But jeez, it's closer than I-94 and Southfield, and I don't have to make a political statement by choosing between Target Whiteland in Allen Park and Everyone-Else-Target in Dearborn.

Cock-a-doodle-doo

And finally, you'll be sitting around some Woodbridge porch party, wasted, talking to your friends, finding out that they too have been making sneaky visits too, and you realize that everyone is doing it.

Cock-a-doodle-doo

[Isle_of_fun]

why is this even an issue on the Detroit site...
Just remember the Chinese Walmart's are not allowed to sell anything made anywhere but in China! hmmmm? can this statement be true? If It is true does it bother you? Would you still shop there, work there etc. etc. etc ?????

Remember why Detroit has the DIA and other great places!
Learn where the money came from for the things you enjoy and support that!

[Motor City Sam]

I'm a KMart guy, moslty because all of my life they have had at least one store in Detroit. And while most retailers left the City and did not look back, KMart has built two new stores in Detroit in the relatively recent past. Things might cost less at Walmart, but I'll bite the bullet to support a business that supports my City.