Source: Fran Spielman | Chicago Sun-TimesRAN SPIELMAN After authorizing just one Wal-Mart in the last six years, the City Council has now signed off on two in the pat month — with more to follow as part of the retailer’s $1 billion Chicago expansion. The 41 to 4 vote was a long-awaited victory for Ald. Howard Brookins (21st), who had waged a six-year quest for a Wal-Mart, only to be leapfrogged... 

The Chicago City Council’s Zoning Committee on Thursday, June 24, 2010 was expected to vote on bringing a second Walmart to the city. It would be in the Pullman Park neighborhood. Anthony Beale is the Alderman there, and he joined us. WATCH: Beale: We Expect Walmart Votes a2a_config.linkname="Beale: We Expect Walmart Votes (VIDEO)"; a2a_config.linkurl="http://21wdo.com/?p=268"; a2a.init("page");  Read More →

SOURCE: MyFoxChicago.com Walmart has reached a deal with the City of Chicago to open about 30 new stores over the next few years. The development comes after years of wrangling with unions, who wanted Walmart to offer higher pay and better benefits. Walmart has agreed to a starting wage of $8.75/hour, 50 cents more than the state minimum wage. The new stores will be built with union labor. And the... 

Supporters of a new Walmart in Chicago say the store will bring new jobs to the city, but researchers at UIC and Loyola University say it may not be a panacea for poor, urban neighborhoods. The researchers have spent the past four years studying the impact of Chicago’s first Walmart, which opened in the Austin neighborhood in 2006. They conducted telephone surveys of Walmart competitors in the... 

The first round in the latest battle over a new Wal-Mart in Chicago went to the retailer Thursday as the city Plan Commission endorsed a shopping center anchored by the store for the Pullman neighborhood. But the proposal that would bring a second Wal-Mart still faces major hurdles in the City Council, where aldermen allied with labor unions have again put forward an ordinance that would require businesses... 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has won the support of dozens of church ministers in its long-running battle to expand in Chicago, a sign of how the recession has softened skepticism of the retailer in a community desperate for jobs. The ministers, most of them African-Americans together representing thousands of congregants, are pressuring the city council to grant approval for a Wal-Mart “supercenter”—a... 

There was a new setback today for supporters of a second Walmart store in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago. A planed discussion at City Hall was canceled this morning by finance committee chairman Ed Burke. A report by the University of Illinois at Chicago and Loyola University suggests that another Walmart will not create jobs. This conclusion, based on a study done on the store in the Austin... 

Chicago should open its arms to Wal-Mart just as the suburbs do, Mayor Richard Daley said today. “These questions are not debated in the suburban area,” he said. “They are never even talked about.” The mayor was responding to a failed attempt by Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, the influential Finance Committee chairman, to force the mega-retailer and other smaller operators to pay a higher minimum...