Walmart Closing All Four of Its Marketside Stores on Friday (AZ)

[Javaman]

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bella/2011/10/walmart_closing_all_four_of_it.php

After three years of attempting to give shoppers shoppers a quick place to buy prepared foods, a la Fresh & Easy, the retail giant Walmart is closing all four of its Marketside stores this Friday.

The 16,000-square-foot stores, located in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, and Tempe, offered, along with prepared foods, items like roasted chickens, baked bread, produce, wine, and other groceries.

The Republic reports that the closures "will affect about 90 workers who will be given priority for job openings at other Walmart stores in metro Phoenix."

After abandoning Marketside, the Arkansas-based retailer, Reuter's reports, is now banking on Walmart Express, a small-store concept of general merchandise and groceries launched in June and designed to be placed in locations where its big-box concept won't work.

not much more at link...

[Shagbark Hickory]

1. LOL. Didn't that used to just be called "Walmart" ??

You know, before they all became supersized supercenters?

[sammytko]

3. yes, our local wal-mart has all of that.

I personally am leery of their prepared foods and even their meat and produce. I'll buy general merchandise, but that is it. Even the garden center sucks. Plants always die and they slowly cut corners to save money.

I have purchased their 16" pavers over a period of 10 years. The last batch was not 16" and my expanding patio area is skewed on one end. Maybe 1/2 inch off.

[LeftinOH]

2. Now what are they going to do with the abandoned box stores and surface parking lots

they created to put these things up?

[Shagbark Hickory]

4. Leave them there for all of eternity, I'm sure. n/t

[Javaman]

6. Check this out...

I have had this on my mind for years, but this guy is doing documented research into it...

Turning a parking lot into a garden (OSU urban farming study)
http://thedailyattack.com/2011/09/26/osu-urban-farming-study-turning-a-parking-lot-into-a-garden/

WOOSTER, Ohio — An old asphalt parking lot might not seem like a good place for a garden.

But in urban areas it can be. It tends to be cheap open land. And an Ohio State University expert on intensive small-scale horticulture has started a three-year study on what works best there.

Joe Kovach, who specializes in maximizing fruit and vegetable production in limited spaces, is comparing three ways to do it in empty, abandoned parking lots: in giant-sized pots and in raised beds on top of the blacktop, and in trenches cut right through it.

“There are a lot of vacant parking lots in places like Cleveland and Youngstown,” said Kovach, who works at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) in Wooster and holds a joint appointment with Ohio State University Extension. “We’re hoping to learn if the trenches work, if the pots are worth it and of all three techniques, which is the best?”

[MadMaddie]

9. I read a couple of years ago WalMart has the most empty

buildings in square footage in the country. I will have to look for that article. They destroy communities but when those stores don't make a profit they close the doors leaving those communities without a grocery store or general goods.

[onethatcares]

11. they're going to leave them to the taxpayers to look after

since they got offered all kinds of incentives to "create jobs". Jobs that are no longer needed by them.

[madrchsod]

5. walmart is opening the marketsides in the southside of chicago..

interesting concept that is aimed at putting their sam`s club buyers out of business. after working at sam`s clubs selling coffee for three months on the southside i noticed many buyers of sam`s products loading up trucks with goods to sell at their small stores. the biggest seller was mexican made pop, fresh produce, and frozen goods. if walmart can keep the back door shut they may be able to sell enough out the front door to make a go of their concept.

[FarCenter]

7. Those must be Walmart Express stores

The Marketside stores only existed in Phoenix, and they were a marketing test. Walmart decided against rolling them out elsewhere and they are replaced by the Walmart Express concept.

[ThatsMyBarack]

8. "Walmart" and "Closing"

Are two words I never expected to see in the same sentence! :wow:

[JoeyT]

10. They close stores all the time.

They destroy all competition, bleed all the money from the local economy, and when the vein runs dry they shut it down.

I'm expecting our local one to shut down pretty soon. They keep blocking off aisles and leaving large sections of shelves empty. It closing will actually be a bad thing now that they've shut down every other store in town.