A new Walmart is getting ready to move into the same shopping center as Trader Joe’s on Victoria Ave, and this has some people concerned about the potential for increased traffic and loss of profits by smaller stores.
Construction on the Walmart should start early next year in the old Kmart shopping complex, said Jeffrey Lambert, Community Development Director for the City of Ventura. Lambert said that before construction starts, Ventura’s Design Review Committee must approve all of Walmart’s plans.
“The Design Review Committee wanted Walmart to make revisions to its plans in late September, and they (Walmart) haven’t submitted anything (new) yet,” Lambert said in a phone interview.
The city will limit Walmart to 100,000 square feet, but there is no 90,000 square foot limit which would have only been put into effect if Measure C had passed. Though many people thought that Measure C would have completely stopped Walmart from moving in, it actually would have only limited the size of the store.
“I would rather have it not go in there so it won’t take away business from Trader Joe’s, but I wasn’t really for Measure C because of all the “stop crime” stuff,” stated sophomore Aron Egelko. A campaign against Measure C focused on the possible increases in crime the big store might generate, increases that were denied by Walmart officials.
Having a Walmart in Ventura should generate a lot of sales tax. Aaron Rios, a spokesman for Walmart, told The Ventura County Star in October that the Walmart and Sam’s Club in Oxnard and the Walmart in Simi Valley have produced about $1.8 million in sales tax revenue for their communities.
Some good news for Ventura area residents looking for work is that the average pay for a Walmart employee is higher than minimum wage. According to data on Walmart’s site, the average wage for an employee at the ten most recently opened or re-modeled stores is $11.65 per hour, which is $3.65 more an hour than California’s minimum wage.The Foothill Dragon Press contacted Walmart’s media relations department to request information on the number of jobs the average store provides in a community, but was denied an interview based on the corporation’s policy of not commenting to high school media.
However, Walmart could also have potentially bad effects on the local community. In their study on how Walmart is affecting rural poverty, Stephan J Goetz and Hema Swaminathan of Pennsylvania State University wrote, “Walmart stores destroy civic capacity in the communities in which they locate by driving out local entrepreneurs and community leaders.”
Though this is a worry among some citizens and small business owners, the CATO Institute, a non-profit research foundation, has done studies that have found that “Wal-Mart has no statistically significant impact on the overall size of the small business sector in the United States. When all is said and done, there are just as many small businesses that are just as profitable despite the presence of Wal-Mart.”
Some people have expressed worry about increased traffic on Victoria Avenue and fear there will not be enough parking spaces. Still, the city says that based on the square footage of the Walmart, there will be sufficient parking at the center to deal with the increase in shoppers once Walmart opens. “The city doesn’t base the regulation by the number of visitors per year, but on the square footage,” Lambert said.
“I’m against Walmart if it takes away business from local stores, but I think that a lot of people are going to welcome the Walmart because it will help people cope with the (expletive) economy,” commented sophomore Ben Gill.
