The Tucson City Council will ask Walmart not to operate 24 hours a day at its new store in El Con Mall, although there's nothing that will force the company to comply.
The council met in closed session Wednesday to get legal advice on the Walmart planned for El Con, in midtown. In open session, the council said it will publicly respond to a letter from the lawyer for the El Encanto neighborhood objecting to the store, and also release the city's legal opinion about Walmart's locating there.
During a break in the meeting, City Attorney Mike Rankin said the response to El Encanto would be short - saying the same thing that his legal opinion does, that as long as the planned 102,000-square-foot Walmart is built on the same footprint as the former Macy's, it would be in compliance with the rezoning of El Con passed by the council in 2000 - and Walmart would not need a new council approval.
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In addition, the zoning does not prohibit operations occurring 24 hours a day.
But surrounding neighbors are adamantly opposed to round-the-clock hours for Walmart.
The council will ask the owners of both Walmart and El Con Mall to change the hours of operations as well as the layout of the store, including the entrance, exits and loading zones.
Walmart is unlikely to heed the requests from the city. Walmart spokesman Delia Garcia said, "Our plan is to offer customers the convenience of 24-hour shopping at the El Con Mall Walmart."
"We base our store hours on customer need and have found that, by and large, Tucson residents are looking for one-stop shopping convenience around the clock," Garcia added.
The main entrance to the Walmart will be on the west side and the loading docks will remain on the north side, Garcia said. There will be an entrance on the east side into the mall, she said.
All but one of the area's Walmarts are open 24 hours a day.
Neighborhoods surrounding El Con - most notably El Encanto Estates - have stepped up their opposition ahead of Walmart's beginning construction on the store it wants to have open in mid-2012.
El Encanto, one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods, had its homeowners association's lawyer send a letter to Rankin this week contending the development agreement the city signed with the owners of El Con in 2000 is not valid, and even if it were valid, some of the development rights under the agreement have expired.
On another issue, the council took no action after a holding a closed-door session to discuss possibly prohibiting more than two unrelated people from sharing a house as a way to deal with the rising number of mini-dorms around the University of Arizona.
Contact reporter Rob O'Dell at 573-4346 or rodell@azstarnet.com
