Back in 1999 Tucson geniuses passed a big box ordinance to keep out big bad Walmart. Neighborhoods pushed hard to preserve their unique character and individuality. Now those neighbors are driving to Marana to buy their big screens.
What the ordinance did was push a big source of general fund revenue out of Tucson city limits. It’s time for another look at the ordinance and see if it still make sense.
The new Target on Oracle and Roger will bring in between $2 and $3 million in general fun revenue this year alone. Sure could use the money right about now.
“At Alvernon as you mentioned, there is an opportunity there, potentially,” she said. “There is a lot of speculation about El Con. We would be interested in serving that community.”
On a local level, Wal-Mart needs the locations. Its store at Speedway and Kolb, which preceded the 1999 big-box ordinance, is extremely busy and stressed. There are plenty of Walmart customers who either fight through traffic to get to that location or turn around and head to Benson — yes, Benson — to buy their stuff.
“We know that customers from the southeast area are traveling to Benson and Green Valley and some are even going all the way over to Marana,” Garcia said.
But this expansion push also comes at a time when Wal-Mart is rolling out smaller “neighborhood market” grocery stores.
Squeezed out of metro markets with big-box ordinances and looking to reshape its brand, Wal-Mart has turned to the smaller store as a way to gain market share, recent news reports have said.
I don’t like Walmart and try not to shop there. I disagree with their treatment of vendors and their demand for “Always Low Prices” has driven manufactures to chase ever cheaper labor (and quality) all around the globe. So this is no means a call more more Walmarts in Tucson. This is a call for the council to finally realize that the market will determine if Best Buy, Target or Walmart locate in our community. People will drive for a deal and that drive is starving Tucson of much needed sales tax revenue.
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Once again [and I am not dissing them] Marana and Oro Valley ar kicking Tucson’s butt all over the place. Is anyone paying attention at city hall? Hopefully Steve K will get Tucson going inthe right direction. We’ll see. I remember recently tht Nina [gone] and Rodney G. said they were ready to be “more buisness friendly”. Ok, we are watching. Prove it Rodney!!!
Its always amazing how simple economic rules follow actual human behavior and NOT the laws of man. A legislature/executive institutes a law to remove a perceived ‘harm’ (Big Box Store destroys neighborhood). The owners of said business invest their money where it will actually have a real return on the investment (the next town over). Leaving the owner of the business richer and the ‘poor’ neighborhood without the tax revenue, the enhanced property values and the jobs.
Undeniable fact of life…. the laws of true human behavior will ALWAYS trump the laws of man over the course of time.
What about not in my back yard? Hmmm you mean the California way doesn’t work all the time?
The worst part of this story is the THREE year “look back”. In 2002 I chaired a sub-committee of the City of Tucson Planning Commission that was to rework the Big Box ordinance and alleviate the issues that concerned neighborhoods and retailers alike. We spent a lot of time on this sub-committee. Most bodies like this meet once, maybe twice per month- we meet for 3 hours every Thursday for 9 months. We wrote 45 pages of Land Use Code that had the consensus of all parties- retailers, developers, staff, and (yes- beleive it or not) the neighborhoods. When we went to each Ward office to discuss the revisions, we got the same story. The unions had been there already and had already secured each council person’s “no” vote. The measure was defeated 5-2 (Dunbar and Rondstadt were the only “yes” votes) as the liberals voted along predictable lines and the swings all “swung” left in an election year. Nine months of our time and effort wasted! The interests of our city and its neighborhoods (yes- I said it again) and the business community were subverted by some union suits from Phoenix. Thats the hell of it- we had a way out of this mess 7 years ago and the unions killed it. So here we are 10 years later with a section of the Land Use Code that was virtually “cut and pasted” out of the Ft Collins CO Land Use Code. Business and tax revenue thwarted and the neighborhoods are unprotected…..