Wal-Mart's Latest Loop-hole

Wal-Mart's latest solution to ordinances that limit the size of stores is to build two smaller stores side-by-side.

1 minute read

March 7, 2005, 10:00 AM PST

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech


Last summer, officials in Calvert County, Maryland passed regulations limiting the size of big-box stores in the county’s historic town centers. But Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, appears to have hit upon a novel way around the rules: divide the store in two.In what company officials are calling one of the first arrangements of its kind in the country, Wal-Mart plans to build a 74,998-square-foot store cheek by jowl with a 22,689-square-foot garden center. The two Wal-Marts -- each with its own entrance, utilities, bathrooms and cash registers -- would have a combined area 30 percent larger than the 75,000-square-foot limit for a single store in Dunkirk.The tactic is the latest example of Wal-Mart's increasingly creative responses to the scores of jurisdictions around the country that have passed regulations limiting the size and location of big-box stores.

Thanks to Dan Malouff

Monday, March 7, 2005 in The Washington Post

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