SOME BACKGROUND ON WAL-MART
IN ACCOKEEK
:
- TSC-Muma Mattawoman Partnership, a developer, reports it will soon submit plans to Prince George's County for a 203,000 square foot Wal-Mart at the intersection of Routes 228 and 210 in Accokeek. This would be the largest Wal-Mart in the state of Maryland.
- The building would cover nearly five acres, with a massive parking lot. That is five times the size of Giant or Safeway. It is planned as a superstore (with a grocery). Superstores are typically open 24 hours per day. It is estimated that there will be 50 checkout lanes in a store that size.
- Studies show that stores of this size generate over 900 car trips per hour. This doesn’t take into consideration the delivery trucks!
- The site is now in trees. It borders on the Mattawoman Creek, in an area that we have fought to preserve as a wildlife refuge for years.
- There are lots of vacancies in shopping centers along 210 now – what will happen to existing businesses if this massive Wal-Mart is built?
- What happened to Maryland’s Smart Growth policy, that calls for concentration of new development in or near areas which are already developed? It was enacted to combat ever-increasing sprawl, widely recognized as the cause of traffic congestion, overcrowded schools, ever-longer commutes, and the breakdown of local community.
Write your elected officials to let them know how you feel about stopping sprawl. Keep Accokeek Liveable!
Questions? Suggestions? New ideas? Email
us at liveable210@radix.net.
REASONS WHY WE DON'T WANT A
WAL-MART IN OUR COMMUNITY
Wal-Mart takes business from existing stores -- particularly grocery, hardware, drug, apparel, hobby, and toy stores. The first formal study of the impact of Wal-Mart on local business, by Iowa State University economist Kenneth Stone in 1988, found that the typical Wal-Mart took more than 75% of its sales from existing stores in town. New studies confirm that pattern.
Wal-Mart has a "Saturation Strategy" -- typically several stores open close together, to keep
distribution costs down and to overwhelm competition. Wal-Mart plans to open a store in LaPlata and in Accokeek and there are reports of another one to be built at 210 just south of Livingston Square Shopping Center.
- Wal-Mart isn’t around for long
-- it continuously relocates stores, in search of new markets and greater profits. Wal-Mart currently has about 326 empty stores across the US, with roughly 20 million square feet of empty space.
- Wal-Mart promises jobs and tax revenues but there are few net gains
– the price is jobs lost elsewhere in the community, and Wal-Mart's low wage, part-time, low-or-no benefits are not the kind of jobs which support families. The added tax revenues are at the expense of falling sales in other community businesses.
- Wal-Mart's profits leave the community
– they go to Bentonville, AR, the home of the Waltons, who are still heavily involved in the business. They are the second richest family in the US, with a combined fortune of $64 billion, second only to Bill Gates. Not only do the profits leave the community, so do the managers. The Wal-Mart managers are moved to different stores, often every six months, so they don’t put down roots and become neighbors.
Sources: In Sam We Trust, Bob Ortega (Wall Street Journal staff reporter), Random House, 1998;"What Happened When Wal-Mart Came to Town," by Thomas Muller and Elizabeth Humstone for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, May 1996; "The Impact of Discount Superstores on Traditional Business Districts," testimony to the town of North Elba Planning Board, Kennedy Lawson Smith, National Trust for Historic Preservation, June 1995; "How Superstore Sprawl Can Harm Community," Constance Beaumont, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1994.
Questions? Suggestions? New ideas? Email
us at liveable210@radix.net.
IF YOU THINK TRAFFIC IS BAD NOW…
The 203,000 square foot Wal-Mart under discussion for the intersection of Routes 210 and 228 is five times the size of the Giant and Safeway Stores (each has about 40,000 square feet).
Studies in other locations indicate that a store of this size would add at least 900 car trips per hour – well over 9,000 per day!
This doesn’t even count delivery truck trips, which will be numerous for a store of this size.
- Traffic congestion in the area is already severe.
The Maryland State Highway Administration rating the five intersections with Indian Head Highway (Route 210) from the Beltway south as "F" (the worst) both at morning and night rush hours.
The next intersection at Swan Creek is listed as "D" and Old Forest Road as "C" in the morning and "D" in the evening.
Other intersections in Accokeek are currently less congested, but a project to widen Route 228 to four lanes where it insects with Route 210 is
underway. This can only be expected to increase traffic on 210 all along the corridor, as people cross over from Route 301.
- No study of the impact of such a huge Wal-Mart on traffic -- either car or truck -- is available, or even planned, as far as we know. But 9,000 extra trips per day on an already crowded road will make a dramatic change in all of our lives.
- Let your elected officials know how you feel about spending even more time in your car!
Questions? Suggestions? New ideas? Email
us at liveable210@radix.net.