In today?’s Austin Am. St, business section there is an article under Smart Money. They are talking about Wal-Mart. The paragraph that really hit me is:

Wal-Mart Supercenters, which are anywhere from 100,000 to 210,000 sq. Ft in size, offer a full line of grocery items as well as traditional Wal-Mart items under one roof. The 1,309 Supercenters have taken market share in just about every location they've entered. That's because their prices are typically about 20% lower than those of traditional supermarkets.

My point & concern is just that if any of us think that the Wal-Mart coming into S. Austin, especially since the gal from Wal-Mart said that they want one every 3 miles (next one is on Slaughter & 35) is not going to have a tremendous impact on our local business, we are kidding ourselves! I am not a gambler, but I'll wage $ on the one in Sunset Valley will sit empty to continue to squeeze out our local business. (Reminds me of Waterloo & Borders) As also talked about in today?’s business section, our high paying jobs are leaving for cheap employees such as in Malaysia and India.
(I called AMEX and was talking about my credit card to someone in INDIA) The jobs that will be left are low paying that only will benefit Wal-Mart, Loews, Home Depot bottom lines and kids that need summer jobs! Additionally, mortgages in this area of South Austin cannot be paid on this kind of income. Not only will this help kill our area visually, traffic wise, but salary wise. And all these For Sales signs will continue to go up and our property values will continue to slide. But the development continues and the ground keeps a breaking here in Circle C! On another note, I also wonder how many boats and RV?’s will be kept in Steve Barlett?’s (our BOD that lives in Rollingwood) new box storage unit being built on Slaughter near the water tower? These luxury items are the first thing to be sold by people loosing their jobs. We have a lot to think about here in Austin.

Front page story (Sunday)

I had heard that the statesman was going to publish a story on Wal-Mart, a little more than the two paragraphs in the Metro section, which was rather poorly done on Thursday.

Indeed, a nice, well balanced story on the front page of Sunday's paper followed by half of the back page, presented the many different view points and reasons why the Big Boxes shouldn't be out in this area.

They even got a quote from Beau Armstrong at Stratus saying Endeavor people were good guys. More importantly, he said that it is possible to build to the SOS standards ''..he thinks Endeavor could find realitively easy ways to make sure development there will not degrade the environmenl or harm Barton Springs.''


He is right - they could start with using the entire 43 acres, rather than just the 29 acres, but that even that wouldn't be enough to get them to 25% impervious cover. It's still a great big ''superslide'' for slush and parking lot runnoff.

Going to normal working hours would help, but the trucks will still keep rolling, even if the close up a 11pm.

The traffic won't be affected much by store hours - it's going to be the worst during peak hours - we will have a the morning and evening traffic jams at Slaughter Lane and Davis Lane, and they will just get longer and and longer. I can't imagin what Brodie and Slaughter will be like - gridlocked for hours every day.


Even with access to MOPAC, this thing just wouldn't work. No Big Box is going to fit in out here.

Wal-Mart should try Kyle - I hear they are easy to work with - they can't buy enough water for everyone, but the are sure hot for new tax revenue (I mean nice big warehouse scaled stores).

Excellent Concerns Expressed

I believe you (''Homeowner'') and Russ make some excellent points about what a Super Wal-Mart would mean to the local economy -- a lot of low paying, dead-end jobs. And, at the expense of local established businesses. Your analogy to the Waterloo Records/Borders Bookstore situation is right on! Go to a home-grown Austin business like Waterloo's and you will see Graham Nash or Willie Nelson performing in person and signing autographs for free. Go to a Super Wal-Mart and all you would see is...........................well, we won't go there!

I Love Wal-Mart 24/7


Maybe it is not good to have a Super Wal-Mart being built so close to our houses, but I LOVE Wal-Mart.

I am a loyal Wal-Mart customer and always shopping at middle of the night when everyone are sleeping.