Walmart Announces New 'Neighborhood Market' For Loma Linda, Plans to Hire 65

Walmart Wednesday announced it will bring a new Neighborhood Market to the City of Loma Linda. The store, set to open this summer in the Center Point Shopping Center at the intersection of Barton Road and Mountain View Avenue, will provide an anchor tenant for the center and increase local offerings of fresh, affordable food. 

The new Walmart Neighborhood Market will be approximately 42,000 square feet and employ about 65 associates. Walmart will be opening a hiring center near the store location in the coming weeks.

“We are excited to open a Walmart Neighborhood Market in Loma Linda. This new, small-format store will offer our customers fresh and healthy food choices, as well as a pharmacy, closer to where they live and work,” said store manager Laura Barbosa.

Walmart Neighborhood Markets feature a wide variety of products, including fresh produce, deli foods, bakery items, household supplies and a full-service pharmacy.  First opened in 1998, Walmart operates about 300 Neighborhood Markets across the country, including about 30 in California. 

Foods available at the Loma Linda Neighborhood Market will help further Walmart’s effort to provide families with healthy food options they can afford.  In 2011, Walmart committed to make a difference on one of the biggest issues facing American families: how to put healthier, more affordable food on the dinner table each night.  During the first few years of Walmart’s healthier food initiative, the company has made tremendous progress, including saving customers $2.3 billion on fresh fruits and vegetables; providing more than $26 million to support nutrition education programs; and reducing sugar and sodium in Great Value brand products by 10 percent.

“We are pleased to welcome Walmart’s new Neighborhood Market to Loma Linda,” said Loma Linda Mayor Rhodes Rigsby. “Our people and our health care institutions care a lot about promoting healthy living. Walmart’s emphasis on quick, convenient shopping and providing local access to affordable and healthy food will go a long way to aiding in that effort.”

Through its operations, Walmart also supports local businesses in the Inland Empire. Last year, Walmart spent more than $1.1 billion dollars with local suppliers in the region, helping support more than 13,500 jobs. Walmart works with local produce suppliers like Index Fresh, based out of Temecula, and Corona College Heights of Riverside, to supply stores throughout California, including the new Loma Linda Neighborhood Market, and the country with quality avocados and citrus.

“I am pleased to hear about the Neighborhood Market coming this summer to our community,” said Phil Carlisle, CEO of the Loma Linda Chamber of Commerce. “Not only will the store provide great jobs for our residents, but it will give local families another option for affordable groceries.”

Walmart supports local charitable causes that are important to the communities it serves. In FYE

2013, Walmart contributed more than $3.5 million to charitable and civic organizations that serve residents of the Inland Empire, including providing a $10,000 grant to Loma Linda University Health for the purchase of 350 blankets that were distributed to Cancer Center patients. Local Walmart stores in the Inland Empire also donated more than 1.3 million pounds of food to local hunger relief organizations.

The new Neighborhood Market will also further Walmart’s sustainability efforts, including energy-efficient technology and environmentally friendly features to reduce energy and water consumption, and minimize waste. The store will have a high reflectivity white roof to reduce energy consumption, along with skylights for daylight harvesting. A centralized Energy Management System will also be used to monitor and control the heating, air conditioning, refrigeration and lighting systems. Exterior building signage and refrigerated food cases will use light emitting diodes (LEDs). Highly efficient and low-flow water fixtures will reduce the water used by the store. The stores will also operate recycling programs and promote sustainable product purchases.

Walmart operates 42 stores in the Inland Empire, including 13 general merchandise stores, 18 supercenters, four Neighborhood Markets and seven Sam’s Club locations.