Posted by Hal Dardick at 1:55 p.m.; last updated at 3:36 p.m.
The city’s Plan Commission today recommended approval for a new Wal-Mart on Chicago’s Far South Side, but the plan still faces major hurdles at the City Council.
There’s only one Wal-Mart within city limits following a years-long stalemate between pro-union aldermen, Mayor Richard Daley and the giant retailer. Unions oppose allowing more Wal-Marts in Chicago without the city
enacting a so-called living wage ordinance for larger retailers. In the last council election in 2007, the unions backed several pro-labor aldermanic candidates.
The issue got renewed life today as planning commissioners unanimously recommended approval for a second Wal-Mart to anchor a 270-acre parcel in Pullman Park for a
development that would include hundreds of homes and a shopping
district.
The development next must go before the City Council’s Zoning Committee for a zoning change, which also must be approved by the full council.
Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, testified he tried to get other retailers — including Dominick’s, Jewel and Costco — to build at the Pullman site, to no avail. "Wal-Mart wasn’t our first choice. I worked with the unions to try to get someone else to come in," Beale said.
"Nobody else is coming to the area," he said. "If a Wal-Mart doesn’t anchor my site, this site is going nowhere," Beale said.
The property tax revenue generated by a shopping center on the site will help raise millions of dollars for the city, he said.
Beale’s testimony was met with applause from the gallery, where he said his constituents were sitting to support the plan.
Merlon Jackson, pastor of Christ Community Church on 103rd Street, said the development would help bring some optimism to residents of an often overlooked area of the city.
"This will give people in that community… some hope," Jackson said.
Ald. Mary Ann Smith, 48th, said she hadn’t expected to favor the project, but applauded its "holistic approach" to providing open outdoor space and other amenities in addition to the Wal-Mart. "I’m so happy to be able to support this project in your community," Smith told Beale.
Today’s hearing comes after Ald. Freddrenna Lyle, 6th, proposed an ordinance Wednesday that would require many large retailers to pay a “living wage” of $11.03-an-hour — the measure backed by the unions.
The other side of that debate comes from Beale who says his ward — and the entire South Side — needs the development for the thousands of jobs it will create, including well-paying union construction jobs for the 12-year project. He also says it will bring a full-scale grocery store and restaurants, which are sorely lacking in the area, to one of the city’s so-called food deserts.
The jousting over the so-called living wage and whether to allow the Wal-Mart resurrects a political battle that took place four years ago, leaving the city with just one Wal-Mart in the Austin Neighborhood on the far West Side.
In 2006, pro-union aldermen passed a living-wage ordinance affecting so-called big-box stores, including Wal-Mart. Daley vetoed the ordinance, setting up an electoral battle in 2007, when unions successfully backed several aldermanic candidates.
Although Daley’s administration has the right to sanction new Wal-Marts in some areas, it has refrained from doing so. The mayor has said he wants a majority of aldermen to sign off on the stores. But unions say they do not pay enough, and aldermen haven’t approved new ones.
The new proposal, so far backed by Lyle and 17 of her colleagues, would require businesses with 50 or more employees that receive $250,000 or more in direct or indirect city financial assistance to pay wages of at least $11.03-an-hour.
"That is what we have calculated to be a reasonable wage for a person’s labor, and we’re saying if you get a city benefit — if you get TIF funding, if you get land write downs — if you get anything from the city to bring your development in, then your response should be to pay the residents of the city of Chicago a living wage," Lyle said yesterday.
Beale, meanwhile, says he believes he has sufficient backing to win approval for the project.