walmart niagara falls buffalo

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Clearly, there's a demand for bigger and better supermarkets in Western New York; Walmart plans to use the new Niagara Falls store as a model for additional locations here, and it's not the only chain planning expansion. In recent months, East Amherst residents have debated whether Wegmans should be allowed to build a larger supermarket to replace a Transit Road store that has run out of room to grow; the proposed new location would be 140,000 square feet, or two-thirds the size of the new Walmart. As fans of Wegmans - ones who have seen how well the company uses its extra space - we support this plan, though in light of recent visits to its competitors, we have mixed views as to whether bigger is necessarily better, and where to spend our grocery dollars going forward. Is our community better served by small, rush in, rush out stores? Ultramarkets that offer everything from DIY home supplies to fresh produce, 24 hours a day? Or a mix of many types of stores catering to different types of shoppers, prices, and needs? Our gut feeling is that the latter option - plenty of competition, with lots of choices - is best for this area, but we'd like to hear from you, readers. What do you think? Where do you shop for groceries? And why? Tell us below.

What this means is that there's a certain formulaic, dry presentation of foods that some customers will find drab, and others will view as reflective of the B.J.'s- or Costco-style value proposition Walmarts offer. M&M's, for instance, are found on two sides of one of many plain aisles: one side has bags of the standard, cheap candy, and the other has stacked boxes of the premium, color-sorted version. Neither is as beautiful as a typical Wegmans display; all of these candies, and others, are just items waiting to be sold. An area called "Hispanic Food" is filled with taco shells, jars of salsa, and hot sauce, but few of the specialty items you'd find at other stores. The soft drinks aisle is loaded with bottles of Coke, Pepsi, and Sam's Club sodas, with relatively little representation of smaller brands. Virtually all of Walmart's grocery suppliers seem to be national, and though there are a few exceptions - Perry's Ice Cream has a small section in the freezers - there's an overwhelming sense that Walmart has chosen to source whatever's cheap and common. For some, this is a subject of concern - one step closer to wafers - for others, it's merely practical, and the huge crowds at Walmart stores are evidence that something's working. Some grocery items at the new Walmart were apparently so popular that their bins were empty but for scraps of packaging as we looked around, while others appeared to have never been touched; they might just have been replenished.

Then there are the new smells. At this location, which will be emulated by future Walmarts, the supermarket and bakery are by the entrance, producing fresh, warm aromas rather than the cool mix of wax and cleaning solution scents that greet patrons at other Walmarts. And the supermarket section is bigger and cleaner, something close to a typical Tops or Dash's Market in terms of scope, with bins of "unbeatable" priced vegetables out front, and aisles of almost entirely boxed and jarred items as you move deeper into the store. There's no bulk food section, no obvious on-site butcher - meats, like other offerings, are pre-packaged - and the human elements of other supermarkets, such as people offering samples, employees lending assistance, and so on, are basically non-existent. When you really look around, it's like shopping in a warehouse where the shelves just happen to be at or below eye level, and have obvious price tags. Plus a staffed bakery.

The new Niagara Falls location of Walmart has been designed to tackle the perception that the chain's stores are trashy. Gone are the tacky faux Americana design elements of prior stores, the cramped aisles, and the scattered piles of bargain-priced crap that seem to attract people like flies at a farm. Now there's a new blue and orange logo, plus brighter, cleaner signage largely designed with Myriad Pro - the same modern font Apple uses for its corporate identity. There's also a lot more space: 204,000 square feet, much of which is uncovered concrete, rather than carpeted. It's illuminated by a lighting system that is supposed to adjust automatically to offset whatever light is produced by natural skylights, but winds up producing an off-putting flickering effect in some parts of the store when it's in use. In sum, it's mostly the old Walmart, with a new coat of paint and roughly twice the surface area.

One of us sees Walmart as a glorified K-Mart, a fine option for those who want to shop there, but ultimately a business that does little more of benefit than apply price pressure to other retailers - sometimes with seriously negative consequences. This editor would spend a few extra dollars and patronize cleaner, nicer Targets for non-grocery items and Wegmans for groceries, believing that forsaking higher-quality retailers will continue the erosion of customer service and overall shopping quality we've seen over the past decade. The counter-argument is the "mom perspective:" it's not just the dollars that add up in savings, but the convenience of being able to make one stop at one store with a child or children, and get everything you need without changing carts or going through multiple checkouts. Walmart stores may look dirty, the mom perspective concedes, and they may not be as nice as Target or Wegmans, but they suffice for most of the items we need, and the savings are tangible.

Merely mentioning Walmart's name in some parts of Western New York is enough to spark debates that are never fully resolved. There are those who oppose Walmart's every advance into new markets, preferring to see huge parcels of land sit decaying and undeveloped rather than transformed into new locations of the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company. And there are some who actually love Walmart, viewing its stores as cheaper, bigger versions of retailers that have disappeared in years past. Buffalo Chow's editors aren't in either of these crowds; we both see Walmart as just one of many businesses interested in competing for our dollars, and frankly prefer to see it cleaning up abandoned real estate parcels, creating jobs, and paying taxes. But that doesn't mean that we agree on whether to shop there, a divide that only widens when we talk about its expansion into selling groceries, the hallmark of its larger "Supercenter" locations.

In the past, the words " competitor" have brought to mind certain obvious names: Tops, Dash's Market, and Aldi's locally, and Whole Foods outside, and any number of smaller, mom and pop alternatives (see: , ) in between. But Walmart? The 21st Century K-Mart? Could the retailer that can't seem to keep its stores clean actually become a viable alternative to the supermarkets we've known and patronized for years? Yes, it could, though Buffalo Chow's editors have sharply divided opinions on whether that would be a good or frightening turn of events. Having visited Niagara Falls' massive new Walmart this weekend, we're sharing our thoughts below, and would like to hear yours in the comments section of this article.

"The supermarket section is bigger and cleaner, something close to a typical Tops or Dash's Market in terms of scope, with bins of 'unbeatable' priced vegetables out front."

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1540 Military Rd., Niagara Falls, NY 14302

Walmart Tests a New, Bigger Supermarket in Niagara Falls

Walmart Tests a New, Bigger Supermarket in Niagara Falls : Buffalo Chow