Wave Goodbye to Walmart

Walmart store pulls out of hipster Dallas neighborhood

Walmart will close the neighborhood store on Greenville Avenue.

Photo courtesy of Walmart

UPDATE: Walmart has released a list of North Texas store closures, which have been added to this story.

---

Walmart has pulled the plug on its neighborhood store on Greenville Avenue, which will close on January 28.

The Greenville Avenue location was the former site for Whole Foods Market and was never a comfortable fit for Walmart. But the closure is part of a bigger move by the corporation, which is shutting down 269 stores including 154 in the United States. Of those, 29 will be in Texas.

An employee at the Greenville Avenue store confirmed that the staff had been told first thing in the morning on January 15.

"Our last day is January 28, and then we're not sure what we're doing," she said.

The Walmart in Uptown is not closing, according to a staffer at that store. "We're bigger than Greenville Avenue, which is a much smaller store," he said. "They've never been that busy, but we're busy all the time."

The Greenville Avenue store will observe limited hours, closing at 9 pm this week and 7 pm next week. Merchandise will be discounted so that it doesn't have to be moved to another store.

Overall, 29 Texas locations will close, the majority of them are smaller stores located in rural markets. In North Texas, the Frisco Neighborhood Market store at 4268 Legacy Dr. will close, as will the Southlake location at 2201 W. Southlake Blvd. Both were relatively new stores, having opened within the last five years.

closings shopping

Politics News

Dallas narrows down field for new city manager to 4 candidates

Photo by R K on Unsplash

This is an Dallasite's sign to launch that small business they've been dreaming of.

After six months without a city manager, the city of Dallas has narrowed down the field of replacements to four semifinalists including one serving as current interim city manager, plus candidates from Fort Worth, Michigan, and Georgia.

Dallas has been without a city manager since May, when previous city manager T.C. Broadnax left to take a job with the city of Austin. Since that time, Broadnax's former chief of staff Kimberly Bizor Tolbert has served as interim city manager.

The city retained Baker Tilly, a consulting firm, to recruit and compile candidates. (Baker Tilly famously erred in the brochure it created for the position by featuring a photo of the Houston skyline instead of Dallas; they've since replaced it with Dallas.)

A spokesperson for Baker Tilly did not respond to inquiries but according to D Magazine, an email listing the candidates has been sent to the Dallas City Council.

The semifinalists include:

Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, Dallas’ current interim city manager
William Johnson, an assistant city manager in Fort Worth
Mark Washington, the city manager of Grand Rapids, Michigan
Zachary Williams, a county chief operating officer in Georgia

All have more than 25 years' of public administration experience and have worked in similar capacities in their respective cities.

Before working in Fort Worth, Johnson was Baltimore’s transportation director and Atlanta’s deputy chief operating officer and public works commissioner.

Washington worked in Fort Worth and Austin before becoming Grand Rapids’ city manager.

Williams has mostly worked in Georgia at the county level, including serving as county manager in Fulton County and chief operating officer in DeKalb County.

Tolbert began working for the city in 1998, first as the city manager’s assistant and later in the aviation department. Broadnax hired her as his chief of staff in 2017.

Unlike the Mayor and the Dallas City Council, the city manager position in Dallas is not elected but is instead appointed by the city council, and is tasked with executing policies, overseeing the annual budget, and managing staff at city hall.

The council’s Ad Hoc Committee will choose finalists, introduce them to the public, and make an offer in early 2025.

politics