Walmart Neighborhood Market set to Open in Kingsport. JC coming next year (Chattanooga: 2015, health insurance)

[sprintuser2014]

The Walmart Neighborhood Market is opening soon in Kingsport. Interesting thing about this article is the Kingsport store manager said JC is getting one next year. I'd heard rumors that one was coming to JC as well and I guess that's true.

Kingsport Times-News: A different kind of Walmart

[Rangerred]

Rumor is the JC location will be in the old K-Mart or Kroger building off S. Roan. I really wish it would go in where the old Food Lion was in Keystone or the old IGA building on N. Roan. Both of these locations served lower income individuals without reliable transportation.

[sprintuser2014]

I'm glad that Walmart seems to be taking dead shopping centers/areas and turning them in the Market stores. The Kingsport one is replacing a very old and dead shopping center that looked awful. Plus that area did need another grocery store choice other than just Food City. It sounds like they plan on doing the same thing for wherever they locate in JC.

[Blue Ridge]

Originally Posted by sprintuser2014

I'm glad that Walmart seems to be taking dead shopping centers/areas and turning them in the Market stores. The Kingsport one is replacing a very old and dead shopping center that looked awful. Plus that area did need another grocery store choice other than just Food City. It sounds like they plan on doing the same thing for wherever they locate in JC.

Oh, the irony...

[jabogitlu]

Originally Posted by jmattjohns

Oh, the irony...

LOL right? I did a double and triple take on that one.

[sprintuser2014]

I'm no fan of the super centers at all in fact I hate them and avoid them whenever possible. That being said I have been to the new Neighborhood Market store in Kingsport twice already and I'm quite impressed! It feels totally different and much nicer than a super center. It's much smaller but has exactly what I need and you can get in and out just so much quicker than a super center. Also the store just feels more upscale and nicer than a super center and the employees were actually quite friendly and talkative. I will actually shop this location and be happy to do so.

[MetropolitanTN]

I agree. I dont like the Super Centers but Id stop at a Neighborhood Market.

[Blue Ridge]

The parent company is the same, regardless of the different look and feel to the stores. Employees will be treated in the same manner; suppliers will be squeezed; local business will suffer.

[Trevor92]

Originally Posted by jmattjohns

The parent company is the same, regardless of the different look and feel to the stores. Employees will be treated in the same manner; suppliers will be squeezed; local business will suffer.

I totally agree. Ironically, when mentioning the businesses Walmart has closed in the past, what worries me most is the other stores that will close. The Roanoke and Chattanooga areas have had many Wal-Mart neighborhood markets open. Wal-Mart is already the largest grocer in America and many supermarket chains have sold out or declared bankruptcy in the past several years including Harris Teeter, A&P, Ukrop's, Roundy's, Food Lion, etc. I would be very worried about Wal-Mart, which is opening over 500 of these markets across the country in addition to their 11,000+ other locations, causing more grocery stores to close. Food City and Ingle's combined have far less than 500 stores total. Capitalism doesn't work very well if there's only a few retailers in the country and Walmart has a very clear track record of sending jobs overseas and sacrificing quality to make their products a few cents cheaper. This is especially bad for anybody that might need a job with a competitive wage in the future.

I have seen many inspectors out by the old Kroger/K-Mart shopping center on South Roan the past few months. If the store opens there, I really doubt the Priceless will stay in business and the one in Kingsport certainly isn't good news for the one in Webber City either as I see those two stores fighting for the same customers.

Not to offend anybody that likes shopping there, I just truly believe Walmart is bad for the American economy and has lower quality standards, but hey you can save a dime on some items.

[tdatl]

WalMart is the bogeyman because they're the biggest. Yes, there are legitimate gripes about some of their business practices (including labor ones they've been sued over), but largely how they treat employees is better than many of those small, local businesses everyone seems so enamored with. At least they offer health insurance, and they're now taking steps to increase employee pay nationwide above the minimum wage.

i'm old enough that I grew up when we bought everything from local businesses -- shoes at Wallace Shoes downtown, jeans at Wiseman's, things like that. And by the time I was in high school, many of the local places where we bought clothing were either severely hurting or gone, and it was before I'd ever heard of WalMart. They got killed or crippled in JC by JCPenney when they opened up in the JC Mall. And now JCPenney is dying because of other, more nimble retailers across the nation like Kohl's and Target. Adapt or die.

And I also have experience working with some of those wonderful local businesses, including two I worked for in JC during high school. I didn't find this out until maybe 15 years later when the Social Security Administration started mailing statements that showed your SS earnings for every year, but neither of them actually paid FICA taxes for me. They were breaking the law to save money, paying me off the books but pretending to do everything above board.

There was no way for me to know they weren't because you couldn't check your SS earnings back then. Shady bookkeeping. I have zero Social Security earnings the two years I worked for the two local businesses, one of which is still operating in JC. On the other hand, the national places I worked for always did things properly.

And I don't know about anyone else, but I've noticed where a WalMart SuperCenter opens, lots of other businesses open around it like remoras on a whale to feed off WalMart's customers.

People have selective memories about the 'good old days.'