“Lead With Your Heart, Wal-Mart”

From the South Mississippi Sun-Herald:

[WAL-MART] may also be feeling the sting from Andres Duany's criticism at the recent Mississippi Renewal Forum. They have an opportunity to kill several birds with one stone in Pass Christian. By listening to Duany, who may actually be on to something - and I think he is - they could devise a model that would silence the critics who say that Wal-Mart is all about killing small towns.

What if Wal-Mart were to work with New Urbanists and Duany to develop a new town center for Pass Christian that could become the catalyst for the rebuilding of the city? Instead of a "big box" store, Wal-Mart could build a series of stores that give the appearance of a small town. The shot in the arm this would give to the development of other stores and restaurants would be incredible.

There has to be a way for Wal-Mart to do something special in Pass Christian that not only gives Wal-Mart a chance to avoid the public relations nightmare of pulling out of Pass Christian but also creates an exciting new model for Pass Christian and for Wal-Mart.

The rest of the Sun-Herald Op-Ed is below. The Pass Christian team from the Mississippi charrette presents the final report to the town this Monday. In the meantime, their preliminary report is here.

The team has been invited to the Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas to discuss their designs.

Fork in the road for Action Alley
Sun-Herald, November 5, 2005

By RICKY MATHEWS

In perception and in reality, Wal-Mart has a chance to do good

Wal-Mart has a dilemma in Pass Christian. For the good of that community, I hope the retail giant makes the right choices.

Before it became ground zero for Hurricane Katrina, Pass Christian was a unique and beautiful bedroom community. Today, 70 percent of the city is gone. The downtown business district is gone. And, more important from a tax revenue point of view, the city's thriving new Wal-Mart has been destroyed.

Now, many speculate that Wal-Mart will not rebuild on the beach. Some say the company is already looking at property on Interstate 10, out of the city limits.

If Wal-Mart doesn't rebuild inside the city limits, what will be the catalyst that enables Pass Christian to begin to fight and claw its way out of the abyss that wonderful community finds itself in today?

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Wal-Mart has amassed a stable of smart, experienced political operatives and marketing strategists into a war room called "Action Alley" in Bentonville. The roster includes familiar names who have run presidential campaigns.

This a clear signal that Wal-Mart is mounting an aggressive defense against negative publicity, ranging from complaints about wages and health benefits to the company's 800-pound-gorilla effect on small-town businesses.

Wal-Mart executives are concerned that the negative feelings about Wal-Mart characterized in the new Hollywood documentary, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," may take hold and end up getting a cult following.

They are fighting an uphill battle. But if they are willing to change their approach, they have options.

In South Mississippi, there are many different points of view about Wal-Mart. On one hand, you could say Wal-Mart has conveniently located its big box stores crammed with the low-priced items we need in our busy lives. On the other hand, you could say that Wal-Mart has built the simplest, ugliest, cheapest stores possible (in part, because we did not demand better) on the outskirts of selected cities, thus shifting and changing shopping patterns forever.

There is no arguing that Wal-Mart has redefined shopping in South Mississippi. Neighborhood grocery shopping has changed dramatically. Only a few struggling grocery stores have survived. Most of the familiar names have closed. Many small businesses have died.

There are good examples of how communities have adjusted to deal with the new Wal-Mart reality. Ocean Springs, for example, under the leadership of chamber executive Margaret Miller, has diversified. Miller refused to allow Wal-Mart to gut the city's wonderful small-town lifestyle. She developed a teaching tool to help small businesses learn how to thrive in a Wal-Mart world.

Miller's teachings are about finding out what Wal-Mart doesn't do very well and then doing those things. Ocean Springs has capitalized on its identity as a wonderful cultural arts community full of wonderful restaurants, and today the city has a national reputation for being one of the must-see places to visit.

Unfortunately, there isn't a Margaret Miller lesson for grocery stores and other retail stores. As a result, South Mississippi's retail centers have been shifting to the outskirts of the communities of South Mississippi, changing the character of our small towns.

As I learned from Andres Duany and the other New Urbanists who were part of the Mississippi Renewal Forums, where architects and planners from around the world brainstormed with local architects, planners and local leaders about the future possibilities for South Mississippi. Duany was particularly critical of our past approach to Wal-Mart, saying that we should have demanded more and better from them.

Enter another dimension to this story: the Robin Roberts factor. Robin Roberts is a Pass Christian native and co-anchor of ABC's "Good Morning America." After Katrina, GMA adopted the city of Pass Christian for up to a year. This brings an interesting twist to the strategists in the Bentonville Action Alley PR war room.

Earlier this year, my family and I visited Robin at GMA's studio in New York. Wal-Mart had just signed on to be a sponsor of the show. As we talked inside the building, picketers could be seen outside the window of the set. At the time, I just thought, isn't that interesting... Wal-Mart is getting hit from all angles. I was impressed at how the folks on the GMA staff were unfazed by the quiet protest. And that's the last time I thought about it until now.

Is it possible that conversations are now going on at Wal-Mart that involve all of these angles?

Allow me to speculate: Feeling some pressure as a result of the national spotlight on Robin Roberts' hometown and the fact that Wal-Mart is a major sponsor of GMA, could those gifted political strategists be advising the executives at Wal-Mart to seize this moment?

If they're not, here's some free, unsolicited, political advice: They should be!

They may also being feeling the sting from Andres Duany's criticism at the recent Mississippi Renewal Forum. They have an opportunity to kill several birds with one stone in Pass Christian. By listening to Duany, who may actually be on to something - and I think he is - they could devise a model that would silence the critics who say that Wal-Mart is all about killing small towns.

What if Wal-Mart were to work with New Urbanists and Duany to develop a new town center for Pass Christian that could become the catalyst for the rebuilding of the city? Instead of a "big box" store, Wal-Mart could build a series of stores that give the appearance of a small town. The shot in the arm this would give to the development of other stores and restaurants would be incredible.

There has to be a way for Wal-Mart to do something special in Pass Christian that not only gives Wal-Mart a chance to avoid the public relations nightmare of pulling out of Pass Christian but also creates an exciting new model for Pass Christian and for Wal-Mart.

There will never be a better time to turn a PR corner. I hope I am half-right about my speculations and that Wal-Mart seizes this moment.

Did you hear me in Action Alley?

Ricky Mathews, president and publisher of the Sun Herald, is a vice chairman of the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal. Contact him by mail at P.O. Box 4567, Biloxi, MS 39535-4567; telephone, (228) 896-2420; or e-mail, rmathews@sunherald.com.

by Ricky Mathews
President and publisher

Coming Monday:

'Lead with your heart, Wal-Mart'
by Stan Tiner

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