Wal-Mart in
Vermont.: An asset, if . . .
By Paul Bruhn
Paul Bruhn is Executive Director of the Preservation
Trust of Vermont.
Next week Wal-Mart will open its first store in Vermont. But
to suggest that the opening itself is the significant part of
the story is to miss more than half the point.
The real story is that Wal-Mart officials have shown, with
their selection of the Bennington location, that they can be
flexible and respectful of our long-standing tradition of
protecting Vermont's rural character and traditional settlement
pattern.
From the beginning, we and most other Vermonters have not
been against Wal-Mart. We have, however, been strongly opposed
to proposed locations and megascale stores that sprawl into the
countryside and undermine the strength of our downtowns. We
think the Bennington store is a good-faith response to our
concerns of location and scale. At approximately 50,000 square
feet, it is less than half the size the company normally builds.
It is located in a former Woolworth store where it will not
create new sprawl, and it will not rob one community's tax base
for the benefit of another.
When Vermont was designated an "Endangered Historic
Place" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, we
were the only state in the nation without a Wal-Mart. The very
real fear was, and is, that megastore development in sprawl
locations would undermine the vitality of Vermont's downtowns,
town and village centers. With more sprawl, Vermont will lose
its identity and special sense of place.
The goal is not to stop growth. The issue is where growth
should go.
In the end, this debate is about Vermont's economic futures,
because a large part of our economy is based on Vermont being
Vermont. Tourism, Vermont products, and the higher education
institutions, for example, make up more than 30 percent of the
Vermont economy and all depend to a substantial degree on the
reality of the Vermont mystique.
The opening of the Bennington Wal-Mart, is no accident. It is
the result of years of conflict, and more recently, cooperation
between Vermoters and Wal-Mart. It is a result of saying no to
megastores in sprawl locations, and yes to proposals that better
fit into our downtowns and communities. The Preservation Trust
of Vermont welcomes the nation's largest retailer to Bennington,
because Wal-Mart has shown that it can be flexible. It can adapt
and do business in a way that better fits into Vermont
communities.
The opening of Wal-Mart's Bennington store isn't the end of
the debate in Vermont. The Bennington location could be just one
more step toward developing a number of downtown Wal-Marts here
in Vermont, if continuing discussions are successful. As Gov.
Howard Dean has advocated on many occasions, Wal-Mart can be a
great asset to Vermont and our communities by locating in our
existing downtowns. This strategy is:
* Good for consumers,
* Good for our environment, and
* A real stimulus for downtown revitalization.
