Chicago Approves First Wal-Mart Store
by June 7, 2004 12:00 am 64 views
The Chicago City Council on May 26 approved the city’s first Wal-Mart store after several months of intense lobbying from the retailer’s foes and supporters.
After the store is completed, Detroit and New York City would be the only top-10 U.S. urban markets without a Wal-Mart store or approval for plans to build one.
The council voted 32-15 to allow Wal-Mart to construct a 150,000-SF store in an economically depressed area on the city’s West Side.
But in a second vote, the council rejected a large store that Wal-Mart wanted to build in a racially diverse, largely middle-class South Side neighborhood.
In Chicago as well as California and other parts of the country, Wal-Mart has aroused intense debate from people who condemn its business tactics, which often annihilate local retail stores and pay employees low wages.
Wal-Mart promised the City Council it would find minority subcontractors to help build its stores and it would try to fill at least 75 percent of the 500 jobs in those stores with local residents.