The big scoop everyone’s buzzing about today is that Wal-Mart is sniffing around for a location in D.C., maybe in Poplar Point, maybe elsewhere. Jonathan O’Connell first reported the news in the Washington Business Journal, and has since updated with more comments from Wal-Mart, in which the company basically says that it’s looking, but it’s not likely to happen in the immediate future.

The crucial piece of information in all of this is that the developer the giant corporation has been working with at Poplar Point, Jeff Epperson, acknowledges that any such move would “require a public-private venture,” or in other words, public dollars or land of some kind, and the mayor’s office appears to be committed not to offering Wal-Mart any kind of subsidies, at Poplar Point or elsewhere. And even if Wal-Mart found a suitable location where it could build without D.C. government assistance, you can be sure of a negative reaction from unions and residents. Remember the 2004 Wal-Mart fight in Brookland? That store never saw the light of day.