WASHINGTON - Wal-Mart opened two stores in the nation’s capital Wednesday after more than three years of wrangling that included protests by union groups and residents as well as Washington Mayor Vincent Gray’s veto of City Council legislation requiring that the retailer pay workers at least $12.50 an hour.
The red-brick-and-glass Wal-Mart on H Street in downtown Washington is less than a mile from the U.S. Capitol and a couple of blocks from Union Station, with apartments above the store and an escalator in the lobby.
A second store on Georgia Avenue in north Washington is roughly 5 miles north of the White House. The space is partially built using bricks and steel trusses from an old car dealership and includes underground parking, solar panels on the roof and charging stations for electric vehicles.
Wal-Mart has plans to build up to three other Washington locations, several in the poorest neighborhoods on the east side of the city.
It isn’t the first major retailer to locate in the district. In 2008, Target moved into a gentrifying area of the city known as Columbia Heights and is looking at a new location less than half a mile from the White House.
H Street store manager Eric Quist, 55, said there is no difference between a suburban or rural Wal-Mart and the new urban sites, beyond the size. The H Street store is about 74,000 square feet. The Georgia Avenue store is about 105,000 square feet. The average Wal-Mart Supercenter is 165,000 square feet.
“We carry a little assortment of everything we carry in our stores,” Quist said. “We continue to be Wal-Mart, your one-stop shopping place.”
Quist, a Maryland resident, said people living near the new stores are excited about the jobs. Washington has an 8.9 percent unemployment rate, with the rate much higher in some areas of the city.
The national unemployment rate is 7.3 percent. In Arkansas, it is 7.5 percent.
Wal-Mart received 23,000 applications for the 600 new jobs at the sites, with 68 percent of those hired being Washington residents, he said.
Wal-Mart officials wouldn’t say what the starting wage for new employees is beyond calling it comparable to what other Washington retailers and grocery stores pay.
“More than minimum wage,absolutely,” Quist said.
Walking out of the H Street location with a cart, David Griffin, 51, said his was one of the 23,000 applications, but he turned down the job because at $10 an hour it paid less than his current job at Georgetown University.
Inside the store, people waited in line for beauty product samples or to talk to a pharmacist. Several ate complimentary cubes of a sheet cake or tufts of pink cotton candy distributed by employees. Minnie and Mickey Mouse joined Chester the Cheetos Cheetah and other snack-food mascots, posing for photos with visitors.
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, RArk., toured the store Tuesday with other dignitaries and said he expects to shop there.
“There’s a sense of satisfaction knowing I’ve got a good Arkansas company there doing business,” he said. “It gives you a warm feeling.”
Washington resident Cynthia Brown, 29, said she was impressed by the variety of groceries, clothing and other items. She said previously getting to Wal-Mart required a 45-minute subway and bus ride and possibly a cab back home if she bought many items.
“Here if I take a cab it is nothing but a couple of dollars,” said Brown, which is nice if her child gets sick or rips a shirt. “We can go straight to Wal-Mart.”
Edith Williams, 63, said the area needs more retail options. She bought several $2 packages of scented wax cubes, saying the same product cost her $4 at Safeway.
“I couldn’t believe it. I grabbed four,” she said.
The stores also provide access to fresh food in areas known as “food deserts” that have limited access to grocery stores selling fruits and vegetables, Wal-Mart spokesman Amanda Henneberg said.
“Wal-Mart wants to be apart of the solution in D.C., and our stores will provide opportunity for D.C. residents in terms of jobs, lower prices and convenient shopping options,” she said.
Respect DC organizer Mike Wilson disagreed, saying there are grocery and retail options within blocks of the locations.
“They may be combating Wal-Mart deserts, but they’re not combating food deserts,” he said.
Respect DC is made up of community, faith, labor and environmental groups concerned about what Wal-Mart employees will be paid and how the retailer’s emergence in the city will affect small businesses, Wilson said. The group wanted Wal-Mart to agree to set standards for what percentage of employees would live in the city and for how much they would be paid to “try to mitigate Wal-Mart’s impact” on the city.
“If you want to be here, that’s fine. If you want to open stores, that’s fine. You just need to provide fair wages and not be what we’ve seen in Wal-Mart in other places,” Wilson said. “They weren’t really interested.”
The group supported the City Council’s push earlier this year to raise the minimum wage for workers in certain large retail establishments, legislation some said was written specifically to affect Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart threatened to abandon the proposed stores when the council approved the minimum-wage increase, prompting D.C.’s mayor to veto that measure, saying it would destroy jobs.
The Washington City Council hasn’t given up. Tuesday night it unanimously gave initial approval to legislation that would gradually increase wages for most workers, not just retail employees, from the current $8.25 minimum wage in the district to $11.50 an hour by 2016.
The issue still needs another vote from the full council before it goes to the mayor. Waiters and others who rely on tips would not receive the increase.
Wilson and about a dozen others passed out leaflets outside a private VIP ribbon cutting inside the H Street Wal-Mart on Tuesday night, largely to the dozens of passers-by inquiring whether the store was open yet.
“We want to make sure that we’re holding Wal-Mart accountable as they start to open their stores in D.C. and let them know that people in D.C. stand with the employees who are trying to get better wages and better benefits,” Wilson said.
Business, Pages 26 on 12/05/2013