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| - There used to be an old Wal-Mart in the University area that was surely one of the oldest in Charlotte. It sure looked like it anyway. Yet it still drew quite the crowds because of the location - in a reasonably nice shopping area, with few vacancies, easy access to highways, not a bad area of town and all that. Until Ikea.
When that store was announced just down the street, everyone jumped - even Wal-Mart. New shops were announced, residences were planned, and one of the worst interchanges in the QC was redesigned too. So the boys from Bentonville bucked up and built a brand spanking new supercenter just down the street and closed that OG store, at no small cost to themselves.
I have no doubt that they wanted to get in on the action from Ikea - even though people trekking to Ikea do not really care for Wal-Mart all that much. It was probably more about the redesign of the interchange and the new residences being built. But still, what happened was they ended up blocking much of the University City access to Ikea, at least for the time being, and you still need to get to Ikea via the freeway (unless you notice the small cut-through on Brookside - I think that is the name). Nice strategy.
The store itself is pretty stock for a Wal-Mart supercenter, and if you have seen one, you have seen them all. Plus, if you get hungry and do not feel like meatballs and lingonberry at Ikea, there is a Golden Corral attached to the very same parking lot.
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