Five Wal-Mart Supercenters planned for Victor Valley

Victorville, Apple Valley and Hesperia all have stores in the works

By Brooke Edwards,

Five Wal-Mart Supercenters are expected to open in the Victor Valley over the next two years.

Three stores are proposed for Victorville, one for Apple Valley and one for Hesperia. All will be Supercenters, which means they’ll be nearly double the size of a regular Wal-Mart and will sell food, including fresh produce.

In Victorville, the project that is furthest along will be in the Dunia Plaza shopping center on Bear Valley Road, just south of the mall. It will include a Supercenter combined with a Sam’s Club, as well as three additional parcels for future development.

The city anticipates approving the project in either March or April, after Wal-Mart completes their environmental review, said Yvonne Hester, spokeswoman for the City of Victorville. If approved, the center could be open as early as next spring.

The entire project is expected to employ 720 people on a 33-acre retail site. The Wal-Mart portion will be 231,000 square feet and include both an in-store and drive-through pharmacy, a garden center and an auto center.

The second proposed Victorville store would be near the corner of Palmdale Road and Highway 395. The third would be on Ridgecrest, near Spring Valley Lake. Wal-Mart is conducting environmental reviews at the sites, and Hester said both are expected to be approved later this year. This would mean a possible opening of late 2009 or early 2010.

The proposed Apple Valley store would be on the southeast corner of Highway 18 and Dale Evans Parkway, between Thunderbird Road and Civic Center Park. The 260,000-square-foot project is scheduled to be reviewed by the town’s Planning Commission in early 2008, according to the town’s Web site.

The Hesperia store will be on the corner of Main Street and Escondido Avenue. Wal-Mart is finishing their environmental review there, said city spokeswoman Kim Summers. She anticipates the project will be approved and they are expected to break ground this fall.

Each store is expected to generate $750,000 per year in local tax revenues according to John Mendez, spokesman for Wal-Mart in Southern California.

Wal-Mart already has regular discount stores in Apple Valley and in Victorville, as well as a distribution center in Apple Valley. The chain’s interest in expanding came from a combination of population growth and requests from customers for more stores, Mendez said.

With the addition of the Supercenters, Mendez says High Desert residents can expect to see prices drop at other major grocery stores.

“When you bring a Wal-Mart Supercenter into the equation, we introduce competition into that sphere,” Mendez said.

This has come to be known as the “Wal-Mart effect,” thanks to a 2006 book of the same title by Charles Fishman.

While this may mean good news for the average shopper, it may prove devastating for the remaining “mom and pop” stores, who will likely not be able to match prices with the largest corporation in the world.

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