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n the public-opinion sparring that has taken place in the past few months between IAMC member company Wal-Mart and its chorus of critics over its salutary or deleterious effects

Wal-Mart operates distribution centers in approximately 120 communities.

on regional economies, the company's logistics and distribution operations have received short shrift, as the economists marshalled by all parties cite only effects wrought by its stores.
   As noted by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, himself a former logistics man, "Some well-meaning critics believe that Wal-Mart Stores today, because of our size, should, in fact, play the role that it is believed that General Motors played after World War II. And that is to establish this post-World War middle class that the country is so proud of. The facts are that retail does not perform that role in this economy."
   That reasoning is one reason why retail stores themselves likewise have never figured into the proprietary New Plant Database maintained by Site Selection publisher Conway Data. But the distribution centers and logistics operations of retailers certainly do.
   Retailers alone comprised a large proportion of the more than 1,200 distribution and warehouse facilities entered into the database in 2004. There were 14 non-store projects from Wal-Mart in North America alone, seven from Lowe's, and a handful each from such retailers as TJX, Home Depot and Target. What's more, such projects spawn further development by global delivery and freight companies: The same 2004 New Plant Database numbers cited above showed 80 North American projects with "logistics" as their end "product" and 33 more with a trucking or freight end use.
   Recent big incentives deals have accompanied mega-store/DC complexes being constructed by outdoor retailer Cabela's too. But Wal-Mart has its own big deal: In 2004 the School Land Board, an adjunct of the same Texas General Land Office that's working with the nation's first wind farm (see p. 26), voted to buy a huge new Wal-Mart distribution complex in Chambers County, near Baytown, which Wal-Mart is leasing back over a 30-year period. After that, the retailer must spend $100 million or its appraised value, whichever is greater, to buy it back outright.
   That purchase helped seal a deal that already had promised a gargantuan complex, doubling its footprint to 4 million sq. ft. (371,600 sq. m.) on a 240-acre (97-hectare) tract. Wal-Mart will pay an initial annual rent payment of $4.8 million to the state's Permanent School Fund, and the total rent paid by Wal-Mart over the 30-year life of the lease will be more than $187 million. "That's an average return on investment of about 7.1 percent for the Permanent School Fund, on an investment with little or no risk," read a release from the Land Office.
   It's part of a recent policy shift by the General Land Office that will see 8 percent of its roughly $22-billion Permanent School Fund invested in real estate or private real estate partnerships. The fund provided $880 million to Texas public schools in 2004. It is now hiring funds managers to help it invest in more deals like Wal-Mart's.
   John Hay, Wal-Mart real estate manager for distribution, is an IAMC member.