ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 23, 1996 TAG: 9601230057
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
A STROLL - OR EXPEDITION - through the Supercenter shows that the world's largest retailer didn't become that by thinking small.
The Wal-Mart Supercenter on Valley View Boulevard opens to the public Wednesday morning.
That public would be well-advised to wear comfortable shoes and allow plenty of time for traffic jams.
That's because if you get hungry while you're in the garden center on one side of the store, you've got a quarter-mile walk to get to the McDonald's counter in an opposite corner. And if you want to see everything in between, you'll be trekking through five acres of merchandise.
And if you want to get back out to Interstate 581 when you're through shopping, you may have to sit awhile in traffic.
"I think customers will be impressed, but not intimidated," said store manager - or, in Wal-Mart lingo, store director - Don DeFeo, surveying the building. "Very impressed."
The grocery section, including a deli, bakery and meat department, occupies one-third of the store. The rest holds general merchandise - the usual Wal-Mart assortment of clothing, toys, sporting goods, health and beauty aids, hardware.
The Supercenter also has leased departments including a video rental store, a beauty salon, a portrait studio, an eye-care center, a tire and lube garage, a one-hour photo department, a travel agency, a pharmacy, and a Central Fidelity branch bank. And, of course, the McDonald's.
There are two entrances, 38 checkouts, 450 employees, 800 shopping carts.
And plenty of benches for resting those tired feet.
It has all come to be, though a bit late.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced its plans for the Roanoke Supercenter almost two years ago, in February 1994. But zoning problems held up the process for several months, and the original opening date - early 1995 - came and went. Construction of the 200,000-square-foot building began in March 1995.
The Valley View store is one of five Wal-Mart Supercenters scheduled to open in 1996 in Southwest Virginia. By the end of the year, Christiansburg, Martinsville, Salem and Rocky Mount are to have Supercenters.
Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retail chain, followed a similar building strategy in 1989 in its first foray into this part of the state. That year it opened stores in almost a dozen Southwest Virginia towns and cities including Roanoke, Salem, Christiansburg, Bedford, Lynchburg, Martinsville and Lexington.
Such market saturation may seem like overkill, but it's all part of Wal-Mart's marketing and supply plan, said Jim Brown, an associate professor of marketing at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business. The company builds a distribution center, then locates stores around it, he said.
According to Wal-Mart spokesman Keith Morris, the retailer's closest distribution center is in Sutherland, west of Petersburg. Wal-Mart has no plans to open another distribution center in Southwest Virginia, he said.
Morris said the company doesn't follow a regional or national plan for building Supercenters. Existing stores are converted into their larger cousins - or, as in Roanoke, new stores are built - when the company sees growth potential in a community.
DeFeo left his post as manager of the Hunting Hills Wal-Mart back in August to begin training for his new job. For the past several months, he and his staff have been stocking shelves, arranging displays, hiring cashiers and otherwise trying to make sure no unforeseen disasters happen on opening day.
But the one thing with the potential to cause the biggest snarls is something beyond the control even of the retailing powerhouse: traffic.
An early 1995 study estimated that during peak hours, Wal-Mart could add up to 650 cars to the already congested Hershberger Road and Valley View Boulevard. In fact, when Wal-Mart and the city announced the proposed Supercenter back in 1994, Roanoke unveiled preliminary plans for a new interchange with Interstate 581.
In October, the city approved the sale of $5 million worth of bonds to build a partial interchange - basically half a cloverleaf - south of Hershberger Road.
But the future of the project depends on the Federal Highway Administration, which must approve the plan before construction can begin. The project could be turned down because there's less than a mile between the existing Hershberger Road exit and the proposed Wal-Mart exit.
"We still refer to this interchange as a proposed interchange," said Bob Bengston, Roanoke's municipal traffic engineer.
Bengston said he expects traffic volume at Valley View to increase substantially once the Supercenter opens. After it has been open for a while, he said, the traffic should stabilize.
Until the 581 interchange is approved or scrapped, motorists will have to make the best of the congestion. Bengston said the traffic may not be as bad as everyone seems to fear. He said Christmas rush traffic at Valley View Mall was heavy but manageable. Improvements were made last fall to the stoplight at the mall's main entrance, which also will provide access to Wal-Mart, and the traffic bottlenecks of previous years were kept to a minimum, he said.
Inside the store, the biggest problem may be finding what you need - and mustering energy to look for it. There will be directories at each entrance, and by the time the store opens, all the associates - Wal-Martese for employees - should know their way around the shelves.
"I've been spending some of my breaks walking around, learning where everything is," said an associate who, armed with a walkie-talkie, was guiding visitors.
"Actually, it looks smaller now," she said with a laugh. "You should have seen it when we first came in, before all this stuff was in here and it was just a big empty room."
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. WAYNE DEEL/Staff On Monday, seventy of the 100by CNBcashiers were in training for opening day. The store is a quarter
of a mile long. color
2. WAYNE DEEL/Staff Denise Francisco, one of 450 employees at the
vast store, finishes stacking up a basketball display Monday.
Wal-Mart "associates" have been stocking shelves for several
months.