The Chicago Tribune
When Amazon announced it was closing its Whole Foods store in Englewood last year, an angry Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the decision a "gut blow." And last month, when Walmart said it planned to close three of its locations on the south and west sides (plus one on the north side) despite having highlighted its commitment to the city in 2020 as part of a pledge to advance racial equity, it was widely accused of hypocrisy.
Walmart knew it was going to get a lot of blowback, so it proactively explained itself in a long April 11 blog post. "Collectively," the company wrote, "our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago--these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years."
It went on to say it had done its best. Detailed explanation notwithstanding, Walmart was blasted.
Lightfoot accused the company of "unceremoniously abandoning these neighborhoods" and implied it was no longer a good-faith partner of the city.
The situation hardly is unique to Chicago. In San Francisco, Whole Foods also announced last month that it was closing "temporarily" a flagship downtown store in the city's Mid-Market neighborhood, citing "worker safety," words that tend to go over better these days than lack of profitability. It said it would only consider reopening the store, which had existed for a year, if worker safety could be ensured.
All of these closings were unfortunate for those who relied upon them, but let's be clear on one thing. You can't force a public company that sells groceries to operate an unprofitable store for the long term and eat the loss.
Neither Whole Foods nor Walmart is a nonprofit social service organization. They have to be responsible to both their shareholders and their employees.
With that in mind, the city needs to think carefully before it dangles major incentives to third-party developers with the idea of creating strip malls to attract major national chains. If Chicago is going to rely on investment from for-profit companies, it has to partner with them to help them thrive. And that starts with public safety for baristas, checkout staffers and baggers.