25th Street Station

Plans for an 11-acre development in Remington — including apartments, shops and a Walmart store — won final approval from the Baltimore City Council on Monday, after stiff opposition from some groups and months of wrangling over traffic and environmental concerns. Tensions over the project — which divided neighborhood groups and pitted labor activists against city officials — rose in recent weeks, as robocalls and e-mail chains denounced the sponsor of the zoning bill for the project, Councilwoman Belinda Conaway.

A second Walmart store will open in Baltimore by the fall of 2011 as an anchor at a $65 million shopping and residential development planned for a parcel that has housed the Anderson Automotive dealership for decades. Walmart executives announced Thursday they are planning a new store at the 25th Street Station project being spearheaded by developer Rick Walker. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, would join Baltimore's first Lowe's Home Center as tenants in the center. The new store would generate 250 jobs, according to company officials.

Recent opinions expressed on the pages of The Baltimore Sun make it seem like the proposed 25th Street Station project in Remington is a done deal — and that the proposal as written is the only choice for Baltimore. The coalition groups we represent, Bmore Local and Baltimore CAN, disagree, as does a large and varied group of city residents who are committed to raising the standards for development in Baltimore, starting with 25th Street Station. We are concerned about the size and scope of the proposed development and what this type of big-box retail center would really mean for nearby residents and those who would work there.

Walmart officials said Monday that they would like to operate a new store planned for Baltimore's Remington area from 6 a.m. to midnight seven days a week, not 24 hours a day as a representative of the development team indicated last week. Baltimore Councilwoman Belinda K. Conaway introduced legislation Monday that would permit construction of a Walmart-anchored commercial development at 25th and Howard streets to replace the Anderson Automotive business. Several community representatives have expressed concerns about the idea of Walmart staying open 24 hours, saying it could make the shopping center a magnet for criminal activity and strain the city's police department.

There's a lot not to like about Walmart. Its stores are frequently unattractive and cluttered. They have a reputation for low wages and stingy benefits. They are no friend to unions. Wherever they go, they have a tendency to crowd out the competition, undercutting small mom-and-pop stores with their "everyday low prices." Nevertheless, the proposed development in Remington known as 25th Street Station, whose most prominent feature will be Baltimore's second Walmart store, has more advantages than disadvantages to the center city.

Recent discussion about living-wage legislation introduced by Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke and the proposed development at 25th and Howard streets has muddled the issues with comments hostile toward the legislation and dismissive of community concerns about the 25th Street Station project. Whether these comments are purposely misleading or just ill informed remains to be seen — but we do know some facts. Retail is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The Baltimore City Planning Commission has the opportunity Thursday to weigh in on 25th Street Station, the proposed development at 25th and Howard streets. There are a host of reasons why the project and proposed Walmart store are good for our community. (Disclosure: I authored a report on this issue for a public relations firm that is under contract to Walmart.) The 25th Street Station project and Walmart push the status quo in the right direction along all five dimensions: 1)

Developers of a $70 million, Walmart-anchored commercial and residential development proposed for Baltimore's Remington community cleared a key hurdle Thursday when the city's Planning Commission gave final design approval to the project. The action came a month after Baltimore's City Council approved a zoning change to allow construction of the development, known as 25th Street Station. Jon Laria, a representative of the development team, said the Planning Commission's action was the last land use approval the developers needed to begin construction.

A proposal to build a Walmart in a Remington shopping center moved one step closer to fruition at Monday's City Council meeting when the councilwoman who represents the area introduced a bill to approve the zoning for the store. Councilwoman Belinda K. Conaway said she did not want to see the site, the current location of Anderson Automotive on Howard Street, sit vacant. And she stressed that the plan to construct a Walmart was far from final. "This is not a done deal," she said.

I am moving to Baltimore in a couple days to attend the University of Baltimore School of Law this fall. I have already signed a lease for a home in Remington. I do not want to live near a Wal-Mart. Study after study has confirmed that Wal-Mart creates a net loss of jobs, drives out locally-owned small businesses and depresses wages. Being from the South, I've seen the effects of Wal-Mart first hand. Where Wal-Mart doesn't crush all other local businesses, it doesn't make enough of a profit and it quickly moves on, leaving an ugly big box store, unemployed workers and taxpayers holding the bill.