Wal-Mart to Expand L.A. Presence

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is launching its most serious expansion into America’s major urban areas, with Los Angeles at the top of the company’s list.

The world’s biggest retailer is in the early stages of acquiring land for a store in the city’s Harbor Gateway area, a Wal-Mart executive told The Times on Thursday.

The site, near 190th Street and Normandie Avenue south of Gardena and east of Torrance, has been vacant for several years, said a representative of City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who represents the area.

That property would add to a growing list of new Wal-Mart sites within big-city borders, including a Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza store due to open this fall. Last month, the company also said it would open 40 Supercenters--a hybrid discount store and supermarket--in California over the next four to six years. Dallas is another big city Wal-Mart is targeting for expansion.

“It’s a risk, but it’s also the next logical step for Wal-Mart,” said Jeffrey Klinefelter, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis.

“They don’t have to rely on the 70% market share they get in a small community anymore. With population density, they can get away with 15% market share in some locations.”

The newest Wal-Mart prospect still is in the earliest stages, said Robert S. McAdam, Wal-Mart’s vice president of state and local government relations. The company has filed a preliminary proposal to open a store on the site, but has not finalized its land purchase, he said.

“It’s a great market area,” McAdam said. “We’re looking at opportunities in more urban areas because those are markets we haven’t served.”

The aide to Hahn said the planned 150,000-square-foot Wal-Mart would be a boon to the area. In addition to adding about 300 jobs in the region, the store would be a retail destination in what had been a blighted plot, the aide said.

Urban expansion is among topics expected to be addressed by Wal-Mart’s senior leadership today at the company’s annual meeting in Bentonville, Ark., where it is based.

Wal-Mart began its march to retail supremacy by serving rural communities, most of which had few, if any, retail outlets within dozens or even hundreds of miles. Then Wal-Mart inched toward the nation’s cities by establishing a foothold in suburban America.

California was always Wal-Mart’s domestic frontier. After opening its first store in the state about a decade ago, the chain expanded to areas around major California cities and then into city outskirts, such as one store in Panorama City.

Analysts say the 40 Wal-Mart Supercenters planned for California probably are the first of what could become more than 100 Wal-Mart-owned stores in the state, including the discount Wal-Mart stores, Sam’s Club warehouse stores and the combination Supercenters.