As work continues at two Southwest Washington Walmart outlets, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. appears to have mothballed plans to build three other stores in the region.
Wal-Mart will open a new Longview store Wednesday, followed by an early 2011 opening for its first Woodland Supercenter.
But the company continues to hold off on plans to build two more Walmart-brand stores in Vancouver and another one just across the Columbia River at Portland’s Delta Park. This may be to avoid oversaturating the local market. No start date has been scheduled for the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer’s planned Salmon Creek store nor for its long-ago planned store in the Orchards area, said Tiffany Moffatt, regional director of media relations.
“We do not have a specific date to share at this point,” she said of the proposed stores.
Wal-Mart has said its $12.2 million Longview store will employ 380 people at 540 Seventh Ave., and its Woodland store is expected to generate approximately 300 jobs at its site off Interstate 5 and Dike Access Road.
Investment in the two stores and falling sales could be behind the company’s mothballed Southwest Washington expansion plans. The company already operates three Supercenters in Vancouver, including its flagship store that opened in 1998 off Interstate 205 and Mill Plain Boulevard. A Hazel Dell store opened in 2001 and a third store off 192nd Avenue opened in 2005.
Sales have fallen for five consecutive quarters at U.S. Walmart stores that were open at least one year, a key benchmark for retail businesses.
Spokeswoman Moffatt would not elaborate on the factors that have delayed Vancouver store development. However, the Wall Street Journal recently said Wal-Mart’s overall U.S. store growth has stalled because it is running out of rural and suburban markets for its warehouse-sized Supercenters.
These days, Wal-Mart looks at each project on a “case-by-case basis,” Moffatt said.
“Customer demand is really what drives expansion,” she said.
And demand for retail development in Clark County is sluggish at best, reflecting cautious consumers who have cut back on spending.
General merchandise sales dropped 2.9 percent in the three months ending in June at area big-box and department stores, compared with the same period in 2009, according to the Washington Department of Revenue.
Clark County’s 12 percent unemployment rate was the highest among the state’s 39 counties in September. The county’s rate of home mortgage foreclosure has also stayed consistently high, with one out of every 374 houses in some stage of foreclosure.
Wal-Mart expects to spend nine months to a year to remodel and reopen its older Longview store at 3715 Ocean Beach Highway.
