Lakeville Walmart One Step Closer to Breaking Ground

For Lakeville's residents, coming to town seems to be a mixed, blue shopping bag.

The good items: more jobs, more tax revenue, and a retail anchor that could spurr additional retail stores to stake claim in Lakeville.

The bad: Walmart's dubious employment practice history, fears the store could attract untoward characters and crime, and questions about what low, low prices could do to local retail stores.

But for the city of Lakeville, there are far fewer questions.

"Walmart is not requesting anything extrodinary from the city," said Lakeville City Administrator Steve Mielke. "So the city is looking at it purely from a regulatory position"

And that's why last night's planning commission meeting, with Walmart as the central topic, was a quick one. Unanimously, and with little fanfare, the group approved the plans presented by Walmart to build a 150,000 square foot building located on a 16-acre site west of Interstate 35 and north of County Road 70, along Keokuk Avenue.

"Lakeville and cities generally are in a position of taking a dispassionate view of the businesses that come to town," Mielke said. "Walmart is being treated the same as any other business coming to town."

Mielke said Walmart representatives will be working on the development agreement with plans to present it to the City Council at their June 6 meeting. If approved, which Mielke said he expects, ground breaking for the new Walmart will begining in late June.

"They're not asking for subsidy or forgivness of ordinance, so no judgement is to be made of the business," Mielke said. "The issue at hand is purely a platting issue. The property is zoned appropriately, and their plan meets all of our codes."

The land is officially called the Lakeville Commerce Center 2nd Addition and had an estimated 2006 value of $695,000. The land was sold by Lakeville Land Limited, a holding company that also owns a majority of other of Lakeville’s development sites according to Lakeville's Community and Economic Development Director David Olson.

Some facts on Walmart’s website gave a glimpse of what could be expected.

The company currently employs just over 20,000 employees in Minnesota with an average wage of $12.33 for full-time associates. As of January, 2011, Walmart currently has 48 Supercenters, 13 discount stores, 13 Sam’s Clubs and one distribution center in the state. The company employs an average of 272 employees per location.

In addition to the new jobs, the city and schools can expect to get a boost from the additional property taxes the development will provide.

Lakeville Patch will have more on this story as it develops.