A New Wal-Mart Comes to Town

Wal-Mart moved across town to a new building in our little Burg.  It opened earlier this week, and it's a brand new Super Center.  It's part of a larger shopping center.  Someone did the math yesterday, and discovered that the interior of the store covers a little over 4 acres.  Think about that for a minute.  4 acres of crap.  The  place is absolutely enormous.

To be fair, the location used to be an indoor, enclosed mall, but the mall failed about 15 years ago, and the property has been sitting vacant, slowly falling into disrepair over time, and had become a hotbed for drugs and other illicit activities.  The entire property was bought and razed to the ground last year.  We're getting a slew of new stores.  While I may not be thrilled about the heavier traffic, I am excited to see the jobs coming to town and the economic impact this will have.  For years now, jobs have been scarce.  Hopefully, this will drive some kind of economic change.  At the very least, this store is a regional draw, as it's right next to the line for 2 adjoining counties, so the added tax dollars will definitely help our county budget.

On the day of the grand opening, the store was packed with people.  I had to go join the throngs, of course, because I'm a nosy person who really does like to know what's going on.  So, even though you didn't ask, I am going to share some pictures of our new Wal-Mart!

(Write this up as Big Happenings in a small town!  Remember how excited I was when Chik-Fil-A opened 3 years ago?)

The Storm Troopers are keeping a watchful eye on proceedings.

I really enjoy the R2-D2 made of Pepsi cases!

This store brings the addition of groceries to our Wal-Mart.  The produce looks so pretty!

Gluten Heaven, right next to the bakery.

Just in case if you couldn't find the bread in the bakery, there's another aisle of bread.

Electronics and books.  This is huge.

I've never seen these before.  I picked up a bag of the Chipotle veggies. Mnimally processed, they were really, really good.  Just toss them in a hot skillet and heat.

The view, straight across the store from a meat case to automotive.

Dairy, Dairy, and more Dairy.  I didn't know there was this much cheese.

I will stop here some - the store is directly in my path home from work.  They have a large gluten free section that will keep me coming back.  However, I'll still buy my books from the independently owned bookstore down the street.  Ditto jewelry and watches and other little gizmos.  My tires and car repair needs will still be taken care of by a locally owned and operated garage. And I'll continue to get produce and meat from the butcher shops and farm stands that proliferate our area.

Big corporate super centers are nice and convenient, but I am going to continue to support our locally owned and operated small businesses as much as possible.  After all, small businesses are the heart of our economy.