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Report: Wal-Mart Wants More City Stores

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Feb 6, 2009 6:07 am US/Central

Report: Wal-Mart Wants More City Stores

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Wal-Mart is hoping to open more stores within the Chicago city limits, according to published reports.

The retail giant is preparing a new push for approval of as many as five new stores in Chicago, according to a report Friday in the Chicago Tribune.

Presently, there is only one Wal-Mart in the city, at North and Kilpatrick avenues on the city's West Side. That store opened in September 2006, after a spectacular political battle that began when the City Council passed an ordinance that would have required "big box" stores to pay workers at least $10 an hour plus $3 in fringe benefits.

Organized labor fought for years to stop a Wal-Mart from coming in, because Wal-Mart is a non-union operation.

Sources say Wal-Mart is planning to put two stores on the city's South Side, in the 20th and 34th wards.

There has been a push to open a Wal-Mart at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue in the Chatham Market shopping center, but for that project to move forward, the city must approve any tenant leasing more than 100,000 square feet. A Chicago Reader article from June 2004 also indicated that Wal-Mart had plans at that time to build a store in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

For the latest plan, the Tribune quoted sources as saying Wal-Mart hopes to help boost the city's sagging economy. But Wal-Mart has not commented.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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