Wal-Mart plans new 150,000-square-foot supercenter
Wal-Mart plans to build a 170,000-square-foot supercenter at Blue Diamond Road and Rainbow Boulevard in southwest Las Vegas, a company spokeswoman said Wednesday.
A construction timeline has not been finalized, and it will take 10 months to a year to build the store once ground has been broken, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Delia Garcia said.
"The goal of opening the supercenter is to serve our customers," she said from Phoenix. "People are still looking for value, for affordable merchandise and fresh, affordable groceries."
About 300 full- and part-time jobs are expected to be created by the multimillion-dollar investment, Garcia said.
Wal-Mart Real Estate bought 18.3 acres for $5.3 million, or about $289,000 an acre, from Nevada State Bank, with the transaction closing in late August, Clark County records showed. The bank had taken the land back from its previous owner, Blue Diamond and Rainbow Investment, in March 2010.
John Restrepo, principal of RCG Economics in Las Vegas, said shopping and dining choices have been sparse in the southwest retail submarket, which draws from the master-planned communities of Southern Highlands and Mountain's Edge.
"It's going to cannibalize existing retailers like Target in Blue Diamond Crossing and take away some of those customers in the short term because you have a large-scale, low-price competitor," Restrepo said. "Target has been sitting there with a captive market for a quite a while." Overall, it's going to be good for the area, inducing more job growth and generating additional business activity clustered around Wal-Mart, he said.
Garcia said there may be some overlap with the Wal-Mart Supercenter at the Arroyo Crossing at the Beltway and Rainbow and Wal-Mart's Neighborhood Market at Silverado Ranch, but expanding into the southwest meets customers' demand for convenience.
Wal-Mart has 10 supercenters in Southern Nevada, along with 10 Neighborhood Markets that sell groceries only.
Contact reporter Hubble Smith at hsmith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0491.
