Wal-Mart Linked to Deal at Lockheed Site in Burbank : Growth: The nation’s biggest retailer will build a shopping center on the 89 acres, city sources said.

Burbank is in the final stages of negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to build a large shopping center for discount retailers on land being vacated by Lockheed Corp., according to city officials.

City Manager Bud Ovrom said Wednesday that the city will announce an agreement this month for a shopping center with at least three high-volume discount stores. He would not name the developer. But city officials who declined to be identified confirmed that Wal-Mart would be the builder.

Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the nation, with sales for fiscal year 1991, ending Jan. 31, expected to top $50 billion. The stores offer a wide range of discounted merchandise.

“This will be the biggest center of its kind in terms of volume of sales in the nation,” Ovrum said. “We expect this to be a real home run, a retail cash register.” Construction could begin in two years, he said.

The Wal-Mart development would replace a proposal by another major developer for a $100-million shopping complex anchored by the Price Club, a Wal-Mart competitor that also offers an array of discounted merchandise. Negotiations for that center are in limbo.

“The center we’re looking at probably won’t be anchored by the Price Club,” Ovrom said. “We still have a good relationship with the Price Club, and we are looking at expanding the current Price Club in Burbank.”

An executive with Kornwasser & Friedman Shopping Center Properties, which was planning the center in association with the Price Club, said negotiations are at a standstill but are not dead. He said he felt that the city would be making a mistake by going forward without them.

“It’s a sad situation,” said Joe Kornwasser, general manager of the development company. “Someone else is going to promise them the moon and ultimately not perform. So now we are looking at alternative locations” outside Burbank, he said.

Kornwasser said the deal stalled because of disagreement over the amount of sales tax revenue the city would receive from the center. City officials would not disclose the details of those negotiations or the ones under way with Wal-Mart.

Ovrom described the proposed shopping complex as a “power” center, a term applied to open-air centers anchored by large discount stores and supplemented by several smaller stores. Each of the anchors would be in excess of 100,000 square feet, he said.

“This whole area is underserved by this kind of retail center,” Ovrom said. “We’ll be glad to have a group of high-volume retailers.”

Burbank officials had said earlier that such a project would provide much-needed help for Burbank’s troubled economy, which was shaken in the last year by the departure of several large industrial employers, including Lockheed, which has begun moving a large part of its operations and transferring its headquarters to newer facilities in Palmdale, Rye Canyon in Santa Clarita and Marietta, Ga.

The center would be on an 89-acre site generally bounded by Empire Avenue, the Golden State Freeway, Brighton Street and the Southern Pacific railroad tracks. The land is occupied by a manufacturing plant for Lockheed’s B-1 bomber, as well as other buildings.