The building program started earlier this year, continues through 2002 and wraps up in summer 2003. The eight logistics sites, totaling 8.1 million sf, alone will cost Sam Walton's Bentonville, AR-based team a cool $253 million, says Jay Brunson, the research firm's food and beverage group manager. Factor in the known stores of all sizes, 147 of which have delivered and some 210 that are yet to be, and Brunson comes up with another 40 million sf--all in retail space coming to market. "I've never had this many projects happening at Wal-Mart at one time," Brunson, who's monitored the retail giant since 1997, tells GlobeSt.com. And, he believes there are another 43 stores in the pipeline to take the count to 400.

Wal-Mart has never had this many projects on and off the boards simultaneously either, but it isn't Brunson's information to disclose, Tom Williams, Wal-Mart's spokesman, stresses to GlobeSt.com. It's simply not Wal-Mart's policy to release the highly classified project information. "When we're ready to disclose it, we will disclose it," Williams says, attacking the validity of Brunson's data.

In a once-a-year press release, Wal-Mart loosely games out its building strategy, giving numbers but not locations of stores and distribution centers on the drawing boards. The October 2000 release says seven logistics centers, not eight, will open as will 40 discount stores, 170 to 180 supercenters, 15 to 20 neighborhood markets, 40 to 50 Sam's Clubs (and another 100 in 2002) and 100 to 110 stores under the Wal-Mart International banner in existing foreign markets. The high end of the count points to roughly 390 in the US this year and next. "There's not 400," Williams says, chiding Brunson's calculations. "That press release is wrong. I don't know where he got his numbers."