D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has reached a community benefits agreement with Wal-Mart that addresses local investment after some residents complained the company made empty promises in the past.
The commitments from the world’s largest retailer include:
- holding local job fairs for D.C. residents;
- donating $21 million to local charities over the next seven years;
- forming of a Community Advisory Committee to act as a liasion between stores and their neighborhoods; and
- spending $2 million for upgraded bus shelters and Capital Bikeshare stands at city Walmarts.
But critics of Wal-Mart, like Kendrick Curry of the Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church in Ward 7, said the agreement “has no teeth.” Others pointed out the agreement said nothing about hourly pay for employers.
Wal-Mart announced last week that it would open an anchor store at the Skyland Shopping Center, a property the city has hoped to turn around for more than two decades. It is also opening five stores west of the Anacostia River: another in Ward 7, one in Ward 5, one in Ward 6 and two in Ward 4.
