The Walmart Neighborhood Market on Murchison Road, which over the last three years has provided a full-service grocery store in a corridor of the city once defined as a food desert, is expected to close next month, the company said Wednesday.
The scheduled closure date is Nov. 9, said Phil Keene, director of corporate communications for Walmart. Clearance sales are expected to get underway this week.
The Walmart's gas station and in-house pharmacy also will close.
"I know if I needed something quick, it was just a run up to the neighborhood store," said Fayetteville City Councilman D.J. Haire, who lives in the community and represents the area. "I was very disappointed. People have become accustomed (to having the store) for three years. That's going to be a heavy loss for the community."
Keene said the store, which employs roughly 80 associates, had been under-performing "for a bit."
An assistant manager at the store declined comment, referring questions to Walmart media relations.
Constance Campbell, 43, has been shopping at the Walmart Neighborhood Market since it opened. She lives close by in the Hillendale subdivision, and said she'll probably have to start driving to the Walmart on Ramsey Street.
That's about four miles away for many of the residents who live off Murchison Road. The next-nearest full-service grocery store is Food Lion, about a mile and a half away off Rosehill Road.
Campbell has appreciated the convenience and the fact the neighborhood store remained open 24 hours a day. Approximately 41,900 square feet, the business carries a full range of groceries, including fresh produce, meats, and bakery and deli items.
"I work in the evening time," she said, "and do most of my shopping after 11 p.m. To hear (that) they're going to close altogether is inconvenient."
Charles Smith, 25, of Fayetteville, said he lives less than a mile from the store. "Me and my wife come here about every day," he said. "I didn't have any idea. It's booming all day long."
The Walmart Neighborhood Market, at 3421 Murchison Road, opened Nov. 11, 2015, in the former Pamalee Plaza, near Murchison and Pamalee Drive. The plaza has since been renamed the Murchison Marketplace.
Winn-Dixie left its anchoring spot in Pamalee Plaza in 1998.
In September 2014, news of the planned supermarket generated excitement in the Murchison Road corridor, an area once regarded as a food desert because it lacked a full-service grocery. The area had not had a grocery store close by since July 2013, when V-Point Super Market closed.
V-Point operated for 65 years near the south end of Murchison Road.
Once the Walmart shuts down, the immediate area will primarily be served by the modest grocery inventory in the Fast Service Food Mart and the two Family Dollar stores. Fayetteville State University also operates a seasonal Murchison Road Community Farmers Market in the Bronco Square parking lot.
A food desert is an urban neighborhood or rural town that does not have ready access to fresh, healthy and affordable food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In urban areas, residents live in a food desert if they are more than a mile from a grocery store. In rural areas, it is up to 10 miles.
The absence of a supermarket in a well-populated pocket of the city can pose problems for residents who are poor, elderly or don’t have their own transportation.
Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin, who lives about a mile from the store, said he was disappointed to learn of the closure earlier Wednesday. "It has really been a great asset for that community with the food. I'm encouraged economically that the corridor will be fine. There's been a tremendous amount of investment there since Walmart came ..."
Still, the mayor said he was concerned about the corridor's return to food desert status.
"Hopefully," he said, "we can get out and have the economic development folks look for a new replacement."
Based on other Walmart locations in this market, spokesman Keene said, the company is confident that it can transfer the roles of the Murchison Road employees to other stores in the area. Those who decide not to remain with the company, both part-time and full-time workers, will receive severance packages, he added.
Rhonda Kennedy Boyd learned about the pending closure from the Observer website. She grew up in the Broadell neighborhood, behind E.E. Smith High School. She now makes her home in Washington, D.C., but her mother, Lethia Kennedy, lives off Murchison Road.
"This is not good," said Kennedy Boyd, 59. "There are a lot of seniors in that neighborhood. I have an 84-year-old and that's her lifesaver — that Walmart. She gets her bananas there. She gets whatever the doctor tells her she needs. She goes to get it there.
"My mother is like, 'How can they do that to us?'"
Staff writer Michael Futch can be reached at mfutch@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3529.
Fort Bragg Stories is a collaboration between The Fayetteville Observer and WUNC's American Homefront Project to commemorate a century of history at Fort Bragg through personal narratives. You can hear from Spc. Jonathon Wannemacher and others in the series at fayobserver.com/bragg100. If you'd like to share your Fort Bragg story, you can email fortbraggstories@wunc.org.
