What's Behind Walmart's South Florida Rush?

MIAMI—Walmart opened Deerfield Beach's first Neighborhood Market last week. Located at 1101 S. Military Trail in Deerfield Beach, the store is about 57,000 square feet and is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

“This is good for our local economy and a great benefit to our citizens,” says Mayor Jean Robb. We are working hard at City Hall to get more businesses excited about bringing their industries to Deerfield Beach. This is a great place to raise a family, but it's also a spectacular place to work.”

Walmart hired more than 90 new full- and part-time associates for this Neighborhood Market. The new store is tailored to the community, offering local favorites, including dry kosher, fresh and frozen kosher meat and deli kosher.

Walmart has been on a rapid development clip. The retailer in April opened a store in Davie that employees 300. Just as the Deerfield location offers kosher foods in fitting with the demographics, the Davie location offers an agricultural feed supply section, where local residents can buy feed for farm animals.

And in February, Walmart opened a North Lauderdale store. The new 185,00-square-foot store, which incorporates green design features, brings more than 85 new jobs to the area. In January, Walmart filed amended plans for its 184,000-square foot Midtown Miami retail location with the city that would add an adjacent 16,000-square-foot linear building. A store would tentatively open in 2014.

What's behind Walmart's South Florida rush? Chime in.