Wal-Mart's second store in Bellevue to be in Factoria

Wal-Mart has announced plans to open a second store in Bellevue — this one in Factoria.

Seattle Times staff reporter

Wal-Mart Stores announced Wednesday it plans to open a 76,000-square-foot store in Bellevue's Marketplace @ Factoria next year — just five days after announcing it would open a 64-000-square-foot grocery in Bellevue's Kelsey Creek Center this year.

The two new stores will be about four miles apart. Both will occupy vacant stores, the latest on the site of the shuttered Factoria Mervyns, empty for the past several years. The grocery will be in part of a former Kmart unused for a decade. Together, the stores are expected to employ about 220 people.

The Factoria store is scheduled to open in the first half of 2013, according to spokesman Steven Restivo. The smaller Kelsey Creek Center Walmart will be one of the company's Neighborhood Markets, offering groceries, a pharmacy, health and beauty products and a small inventory of discount goods, Restivo said.

The Factoria Walmart will offer a "full range of regular merchandise," according to a news release, but it will be 36,000 square feet smaller than the average Walmart discount store. It will sell dry groceries and frozen foods, but primarily general merchandise, Restivo said in an email.

The news prompted some protest from local union leaders and nonprofits who call the employer's compensation low and its benefits for employees minimal. The company disputes those claims.

"Of course, we're disappointed," said Elena Perez, who's in charge of the recently launched Puget Sound coalition, a branch of Making Change at Walmart. The national initiative is run by UFCW, a labor union representing mostly food and retail workers.

"I think our coalition has been clear, and many in the communities would agree, that just any job isn't good enough," Perez said.

The city of Bellevue just learned of plans for this latest Walmart on Wednesday.

The city approved plans to renovate the old Mervyns for a new retailer; those permits don't require developers to list the company that would lease the space.

Mike Brennan, the city's development-services director, said new retail locations would add "new life and energy" to previously empty buildings, adding the city doesn't take a position on the merits of one retailer over another.

"We don't want to see property owners with large vacant spaces for long periods of time," he said. "That's just not healthy for the city or the property owner."

Lark Turner: 206-464-2761 or lturner@seattletimes.com.