The District government’s trip to Vegas for this year’s International Council of Shopping Centers annual conference is in the books — but the city’s leaders aren’t holding to the overplayed maxim regarding what happens there. The Post’s Jonathan O’Connell has the big scoop this morning: Mayor Vince Gray informed representatives from Walmart during the conference that if they won’t build an anchor store at the long-vacant Skyland Town Center, they can forget about building the other four stores they’ve planned inside the District.
In an interview, Gray told O’Connell that without a Big Blue Box at Skyland, he’d roadblock two of Walmart’s other stores which would be built on D.C.-owned property and fiddle with the permitting process for the other two:
“They’re interested in developing four stores,” the mayor said in an interview Tuesday. “All of us said, ‘What about a fifth store?’ They hemmed and hawed, and it ultimately came down to — you have a choice. You can do five stores or you can do no stores.”
Wal-Mart does not require major zoning changes or subsidies to open any of its first four stores, but two are on publicly owned land, giving the city a measure of control. Gray indicated he would be willing to go so far as to nix the company’s requests for building permits on privately owned sites, even for neighborhoods where residents favored Wal-Mart’s opening.
“We had five council members and the mayor and the deputy mayor sitting in the room at the meeting….so it was a pretty compelling argument. They have to get building permits, don’t they?” he said.
O’Connell notes that spokespeople from Walmart didn’t address the Mayor’s ultimatum. The chain has had “preliminary discussions” about Skyland — which, it has to be noted, is located on Gray’s home turf in Ward 7.
Gray’s ultimatum sure raises several questions. Among them: Is the city setting a dangerous ethical precedent by threatening to hold up the permitting process for businesses? From a business standpoint, does the District really want to be viewed as the kind of place where big retailers will have to kowtow to the Mayor’s whims? And does the city’s decision to strong-arm Walmart really indicate “a commitment to development east of the [Anacostia] river” as Gray claims?
