For five years, Walmart has been paying more than $1 million a year to lease a vacant lot near the edge of the District, where the company once caused hard feelings by vowing to build a store, then reneging on that promise.
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The company was set to keep paying for another 15 years, too, keeping the Ward 7 lot empty instead of building the grocery store that neighbors say is sorely needed.
Instead, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced a plan Thursday that her administration has crafted: Walmart will pay the District more than $6 million to take over its lease on the property. And then the city will buy the site, using eminent domain if necessary, to allow another company to open a grocery store on the land.
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Multiple steps of that plan require the approval of the D.C. Council, plus agreements with several businesses and court approval of an eminent domain purchase. But council member Vincent C. Gray (D), who represents Ward 7, said in a news release that he supported the plan. He may bring the question of whether to grant Bowser eminent domain authority for the site before the council next week.
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Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio said in an interview Thursday that despite Walmart’s decision not to build on the lot, located at the corner of East Capitol and 58th streets NE, he believes the spot is right for a grocery store.
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“You’ve got the car traffic. You’re next to a Metro station. You’ve got a neighborhood that’s demanding a grocery store. You’ve got a ward that’s demanding a grocery store. All the elements are there for this to be successful,” he said.
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Falcicchio said a grocery chain already operating in the District is interested in building on the site if the city acquires it. It was too soon, he said, to publicly name the grocer.
The District has 79 grocery stores, but only three are east of the Anacostia River. Residents of Wards 7 and 8 have long complained about the lack of grocery options, and Bowser has promised to equalize the grocery and restaurant offerings there, including through a “Food Access Fund” to subsidize businesses willing to open in the wards.
Some studies have indicated that conveniently located grocery stores do little to improve the nutritional quality of the food that low-income families eat, since people who live far from grocery stores tend to shop in those stores almost as often as people who live nearby. But new neighborhood stores do improve quality of life, by cutting down on the distance that shoppers have to travel.
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Falcicchio estimated the price to purchase the Ward 7 lot — which is currently jointly owned by the D.C. Housing Authority and the Baltimore company A&R Development — will probably be about $20 million, if the city goes through eminent domain and a judge determines the site’s fair market value.
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Some of that money would come from Walmart’s $6.6 million payment to D.C. for assuming its lease, and the rest would come from Bowser’s Food Access Fund, Falcicchio said.
The Bowser administration said the site could also eventually be developed further to create new housing along with the grocery store.
D.C. leaders initially were wary of Walmart opening in the city because of concerns about the national company’s treatment of its employees and other business practices. The two sides reached an agreement in 2011 that would allow Walmart into the city on several conditions — including refraining from selling guns or ammunition in its D.C. stores, building bike-share stations at its stores and, crucially, opening stores east of the Anacostia.
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Five years later, the company shocked D.C. leaders by backing down from its plans to open at two such locations.
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“I’m blood mad,” Bowser said at the time. “It’s an outrage,” said Gray.
Today, Walmart operates in D.C. near Union Station, in Fort Totten and on Georgia Avenue — but not in the much needier neighborhoods where it once said it would bring jobs and fresh food. The company eventually paid the District $1.3 million for breaking its agreement.
The other Ward 7 site that was supposed to get a Walmart was Skyland Town Center, in Southeast Washington, but Walmart pulled out before signing a lease. This month, grocery chain Lidl broke ground at that site.
“The need for a new grocer in the Ward 7 community is urgent,” Bowser said in her news release Thursday about the East Capitol Street site. “Food access is a critical social determinant of health, and it is in the public interest to provide where lacking.”