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Highlands Today

Supercenter Holds Super Opening

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Customers come inside for the first time to shop Wednesday at the grand opening of Wal-Mart in Avon Park.

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By DOUG CARMAN

Highlands Today

Published: August 14, 2008

AVON PARK - With a loud "welcome to Wal-Mart" from Mayor Sharon Schuler and a snip of her giant scissors, the yellow ribbon fell to the ground and about 100 customers found their way into the Supercenter.

Betty Ann Lampkin hoped to be the first one through the door. She showed up shortly after 7 a.m. with her mother and a kid to load up on groceries at what they prefer to call "Wally World."

"That's where I buy my baby's clothes from, like, every month," Lampkin said before the boy, Cameron Gibson, corrected her. "All the time," he said.

Until Wednesday, it was a 13-mile commute for the family, Lampkin said, and now she estimates that this new Wal-Mart is only a mile and a half from her Avon Park Lakes home. "So you know I like this."

The crowd gravitated toward the grocery shelves when the doors opened at 8 a.m. A few looked at the frozen foods section, where motion sensors turned on the freezer lights.

Ultimately, however, customers like Steve Ford saw it as simply another Wal-Mart, only one that is much closer to home. That's a good thing for him, though, since he sometimes likes to make late-night runs to the store.

"There (was) nowhere to buy it at 9 p.m." Ford said as he looked through several shelves of carpentry caulk. He came in Wednesday morning for a blood pressure monitor. Now, "I can come earlier before work, or later."

Not counting the store's employees, Esther Dollar was the first customer at the Avon Park Wal-Mart, coming to one of the registers to pay off her Wal-Mart credit card. Avon Park Middle School student Brittany Egan, 12, made the first actual purchase when she rung up a 60-cent Ring Pop, roughly five minutes after the store officially opened.

Downtown business owners were divided on the possible effects of Wal-Mart's opening on U.S. 27.

John Hill and John Devany, the co-owners of The Depot Restaurant, were both optimistic Wednesday that it would bring more traffic and jobs to the city.

"Will it trickle downtown? Maybe not, but we hope so," Hill said.

Devany added, "It would help the area grow. Maybe Wal-Mart will grow more restaurants so we'll have somewhere to eat," referring to Avon Park Chamber of Commerce Executive Director David Greenslade's comments to Highlands Today that were published Wednesday.

Randy Jordon of Jordon and Son Jewelers was more conflicted. He said his business would not be affected by Wal-Mart because his services aren't provided by the retailer, and like Devany and Hill he thought it could cause more shoppers to drive through Main Street. But he also believed that the last Wal-Mart that opened in the City of Charm wiped out a lot of smaller businesses before it closed down.

"In my opinion, (if) big Wal-Mart comes to little small town, it takes everybody out of business," he said. "They generate a lot of business, but where does all of that money go to... A lot of it does not stay here."

Doug Carman can be reached at 386-5838 or dcarman@highlandstoday.com

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