Wal-Mart's plan to build a supercenter on James Island brings out heavy opposition among the neighbors, and is shaping up as another skirmish in the town's longstanding efforts to set its own destiny without interference from Charleston.
The supercenter is planned for a site off Folly Road, a short hop from the existing Wal-Mart. That store, if approved, will be built over three acres of wetlands, and 30 grand trees will be cut down to accommodate the 176,000-square-foot. Recently, Charleston's zoning board gave Wal-Mart a variance to chop down the trees.
But, while most Charleston city officials back the project, City Council members Tim Mallard and Kathleen Wilson are in opposition. Maybe they have inside information. The Wal-Mart site is within District 11, Mallard's jurisdiction. Wilson, who lives on James Island, has a good chunk of that area in her District 12. But they're not alone. The James Island Public Service District and the town of Folly Beach also stand in opposition to the Wal-Mart project. Along with an overflow crowd of nearly 200 people who showed up at a meeting of the newly-created Islanders For Responsible Expansion last week. And the more than 2,700 people who signed an online petition on the group’s site (isrex.org) opposing the project. But those entities and people really don't have a pony in that race, nor does the town of James Island itself. Although the supercenter is on the physical island, the crazy-quilt boundaries place the project squarely in Charleston's turf.
I could go on about the effects of building a Wal-Mart supercenter - and I have - but the issue I'm bringing up here is the longtime battle between James Island and Charleston. For the past two decades, islanders have attempted to form their own town, and Charleston has been successful in getting the whole thing nullified. Now the town of James Island lives again, though Charleston, again has been fighting it.
Between incorporations, Charleston has been busy annexing choice slices of the island, and the boundaries truly resemble Swiss cheese. As an island resident which town he lives in, and unless he's been keeping up on the news he'd really have to sit down and think about it.
It's anybody's guess what will happen if the new Wal-Mart is built - especially considering the supercenter will also carry groceries. And it's a tough call whether this will cut into James Island's tax base. While the island has seven grocery stores (a Publix, Harris-Teeter, Food Lion, Bi-Lo, and three Piggly Wiggly stores), a look at a city map with my faulty 50-year-old eyeballs shows that only the Harris-Teeter lies within James Island town limits. How the city of Charleston missed annexing that, I'll never know.
Even though these shops are all chain stores, there's no way they can argue when the world's largest corporation is undercutting them in food prices. Within a couple of years after a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened near the Charleston International Airport, two Piggly Wiggly stores in the vicinity shut down, and "The Pig" is not a weak company.
In the long run, one can almost make an office pool out of naming the first James Island grocery store casualty, and sure enough I expect there will be at least one within a year after the ribbon is slashed for the supercenter. Hopefully, it will be one of the stores within Charleston's jurisdiction; let the city cannibalize itself for sales tax and property tax revenue.
Public backlash against Wal-Mart and similar big-box retailers has created a backlash of communities all over the nation opposing the company’s plans to build stores in their neighborhoods. But in this case, the retail giant is little more than a stage prop. Here, the skirmish is merely symptomatic of the larger issue – a government entity cramming its own will down the throats of area residents who have so steadfastly fought for their right to determine their own decisions.
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