THIS IS AN OPINION
We'd also like to hear yours.
Tweet us @ArkBusiness or email us
An American journalist now living in England contacted me recently for help in putting together an article on Wal-Mart and its transforming effect on northwest Arkansas. I pointed her to some stories we’ve done and some other resources that might prove helpful, and I tried to answer her questions as best I could.
Most of her questions were predictable, but one left me sputtering. “Do you think,” she asked, “that eventually Wal-Mart will be the only retailer left in Arkansas?” And in the context in which she asked the question, it was clear she wasn’t asking whether Wal-Mart would be the only major retailer headquartered in Arkansas — which is certainly a possibility if Dillard’s Inc. is ever sold. She meant, “Will Arkansans have to spend every retail dollar with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. because there will be no one else selling consumer goods in the state?”
Now, I think this question was meant to elicit a good quote. I don’t think this journalist truly believed that Arkansans would, to paraphrase Tennessee Ernie Ford, owe their souls to the company store.
When I finally found my tongue, my response was something like, “Heavens to Betsy, no. There are more national retailers in the state than ever before and more arriving all the time.”
I cited the arrival of Starbucks (which she found mildly amusing), Kohl’s and Jos. A. Bank and the impending arrival in Little Rock (not yet officially confirmed) of Belk. Dillard’s still seems to like the Arkansas market; it has announced three new stores in the state — Rogers, Jonesboro and The Promenade at Chenal, that new “lifestyle center” planned for west Little Rock.
I suppose most Arkansans wander into a Wal-Mart store regularly or occasionally. I shop at Sam’s Club (and use the adjacent gas pumps) enough to make it worth the annual membership fee. I’ve checked out the new Supercenter on East McCain Boulevard in North Little Rock and found it to be predictably overwhelming. But my checkbook register proves that other retailers get far more of my family’s disposable income than Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and I suspect that is true of most families in the urban areas of the state. Little Rock is still a shopping magnet for other parts of the state, and those folks aren’t driving in just to go to a Supercenter.
In northwest Arkansas, Wal-Mart has had the ironic effect of attracting new residents — Wal-Mart executives and executives with vendor companies — who demand goods not typically available from Wal-Mart. You don’t build a half-million-dollar house and furnish it with stapled-together bedroom suites from Sam’s Club, right? Part of the economic growth in that part of the state has been the arrival of high-end retailers to cater to a consumer class that has outgrown the Wal-Mart target market.
***
It’s true that Wal-Mart is venturing into some “luxury” items, but even the cruises featured on Walmart.com seem targeted to the same old Wal-Mart customer: “Cruise with a NASCAR Legend … Book a vacation with Rusty Wallace from $529.”
***
What is a lifestyle center, anyway? Apparently, it is a mall without a concourse so that all of the tenants have exterior entrances. Or it is a shopping center with the addition of restaurants and/or movie screens. The Promenade at Chenal and The Mall at Turtle Creek being developed in Jonesboro seem to fit into this category, as does the embattled Shoppes at North Hills in North Little Rock.
Lifestyle centers certainly owe something to the Wal-Martization of America, the drift away from traditional mall configurations and toward free-standing or easy-access stores.
Malls are to my generation what Main Street was to our parents, and I feel a little pang of regret over what seems to be the passing of a little slice of American culture — even though I’m as guilty as anyone of shunning the inconvenience of the mall.
What will happen to the “mall-walkers” and the “mall rats?” Will we have study after study to try to come up with some way to reinvigorate the malls? Will nonprofit groups devoted to the redevelopment of our malls spring up all over the state and have annual conventions? If we bulldoze the old mall sites and replace them with lifestyle centers, will our great-grandchildren scold us for our shortsighted disregard for the historic value of the quintessential example of 20th century American architecture?
(Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. E-mail her at gmoritz@abpg.com.)
Sign up for Daily E-news
