[Vision2020] Walmart Considering Closing Store in Moscow

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (March 20, 2010) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

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Walmart considering closing store in Moscow
Company spokesman says decision will be made before super center opens in
Pullman

No official decision has been made, but Walmart spokesman Josh Phair said
the company is considering closing its Moscow store before the grand
opening of its 155,000-square-foot super center in Pullman, which is
expected sometime this fall.

Phair said Walmart's official position is that the company will be
"relocating" the store in Moscow to Pullman, which could mean one of two
things: Either Walmart will assign the Moscow store number to the Pullman
location and the Moscow store will remain open, or the Moscow store's
doors will be closed.

"It's up in the air as to everything with the transition," Phair said.
"Until we decide, we're sticking with that statement."

Walmart is evaluating the performance of its Moscow store and the
potential performance of its super center in Pullman, which is under
construction on Bishop Boulevard.

Phair said he couldn't say how soon a decision about the Moscow store's
future will be made, but indicated that company officials will decide
before the Pullman store opens.

The 225 to 250 employees who work at the Moscow Walmart could lose their
jobs or be transferred to the Pullman super center if the location closes,
Phair said.

"I'm not sure we can comment on hypotheticals ... " he said. "It's kind of
different for each store and each area."

A Walmart spokeswoman had previously indicated that the company intended
to keep both stores open, saying Moscow and Pullman provided two separate
consumer bases large enough to support two locations.

Walmart recently opened a super center in Clarkston and closed its store
in Lewiston. The Lewiston property is listed on walmartrealty.com, with an
asking price of $4.5 million.

Excavation work at the construction site on Bishop Boulevard began in
December.

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So, the quad-city region (Lewiston, Clarkston, Moscow, and Pullman), wil
not have just one, but TWO Wal-Mart supercenters . . . during a recession.
 What's the combined population of this area?  80,000?

Just outside of Los Angeles County, in Ventura County, in the Simi Valley
. . . a region that, as I was growing up as a kid, consisted of nothing
but ranches and open space . . . a region that currently includes such
neighborhoods as Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, Calabasas, and a population
in excess of 200,000 (that's right, over two hundred thousand folks) . . .
a community where you can't drive two miles without seeing at least three
malls . . . NOT A SINGLE WAL-MART ANYWHERE, NOT NARY A ONE.

Maybe my old stomping grounds is telling us something.

Seeya round town, Moscow,

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown