Wal-Mart still a wallflower

It looks like Wal-Mart will be looking for another location to open its first store in the city after reports that it was close to a deal to move into the vacant Caldor site in downtown Flushing proved to be erroneous.
“[Wal-Mart] comes with too much baggage,” City Councilman John Liu said. “We want to give consumers and the general public a greater array of choices in Flushing, and Wal-Mart coming over simply does not do that.”
Lui went on to say that Wal-Mart’s presence in Flushing would actually displace economic activity instead of enhance it.
An April 11th report in a trade publication said that Wal-Mart was in the closing stages of project planning. However, later that day, Wal-Mart released a statement acknowledging that it did look into the Flushing site, but it did not meet the company’s criteria.
Wal-Mart has been looking to open a location within the city for a number of years, but each time it picked a possible site community groups and local leaders have met the plans with protests. The last location scouted was in Rego Park over a year ago.
One of the biggest groups expressing concerns is the City Council, including Speaker Christine Quinn. Since the Flushing site is already zoned for retail space, Wal-Mart would not have needed the Council’s approval to move into the site.
However, Councilmembers were reportedly upset that Wal-Mart representatives did not contact them in advance about interest in the Flushing site.
“I don’t believe that every store needs governmental approval so long as they are playing by the rules,” Liu said. “In this case, Wal-Mart has a history of not playing by the rules, and they are not welcome in Flushing.”