Now Open in Levittown: LI's First-Ever Walmart Market

Long Island's first ever Walmart Neighborhood Market has officially opened.

The company held a ribbon cutting ceremony at 3335 Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown Friday morning to celebrate the opening of the store. The market is about one-third the size of a regular Walmart and offers a full grocery selection, prepared food, fresh baked goods, a self-serve deli and a bakery.

As part of the opening celebration, the store presented grants from Walmart and the Walmart Foundation to local community groups, including the Levittown Fire Department ($2,420), the Hempstead Boys & Girls Club ($2,500), the LI Center for Independent Living ($2,500), the Nassau County Police Athletic League ($2,500), and a $50,000 donation to the LI Council of Churches. 

The new store employs more than 100 full and part-time associates and replaces the former Waldbaum's.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Levittown Chamber President, Steve Philmus. “We just filled 50,000 square feet of space, it creates hundreds of jobs, and it will create more revenue for Levittown. With this space being occupied it’s going to help not just this shopping center, but the whole community."

Others who were thankful for the store's opening included Rev. Tom Goodhue, Executive Director of the LI Council of Churches', who received a donation of $50,000 recently for emergency food purchases for their hungry guests in Nassau and Suffolk County. 

Others, however, were not nearly as supportive. 

Joseph Fontano, Communications Director at the Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW Union, said Walmart's arrival is a blight to the Levittown and Long Island community. 

Walmart employs a non-union workforce, opposed to many local supermarkets which are unionized, including the former Waldbaum's which Walmart has replaced and a local King Kullen, he said. 

"The fact is, them opening a store like this in Long Island is the wrong step," Fontano said. "There are union Supermarkets all over here - these are all union shops where members get health benefits, pension benefits and heath benefits."

Fontano said that while Walmart does in fact offer their employees health care, it is an unaffordable plan which employees have to pay for out of their paychecks. 

“Walmart has a history of offering benefits that are so unaffordable," he said. "Somebody making $10 paying several hundred dollars a month for their health benefits – is that really affordable?”

William Wertz, Director of Communications at Walmart for the east coast, disputed these claims, saying that Walmart's healthcare plan is in fact affordable for employees.

The lowest-cost health care plan for an employee is available for as little as $8.70 a week, Wertz said. This amount is half the national average for single coverage per pay period and it is available to all Walmart associates whether they are hourly or they are management, he said.

"Many people find Walmart is a great place to build a career," Wertz said. "More than 75 percent of our management ranks came from the hourly workforce, so it’s also possible here to work your way up." 

Wertz added that management positions at Walmart Market pay as much as $250,000 a year and said the New York State average hourly wage for Walmart employees is over $13 an hour. He had strong words for protesters outside the store. 

"These protestors represent a grocery store union and they have their own agenda," Wertz said. "They don’t represent the community or the union people who were involved in the construction of this building. They certainly don’t represent the all the resident of Levittown and all the people who supported this project."

Walmart Market will be open seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. The store manager is Nadine Negron, who has been with Walmart for four years and is serving as store manager for the first time.

The first Neighborhood Market opened in 1998, and today there are approximately 250 Neighborhood Market stores nationwide.

This story was originally posted at 9:48 a.m. on July 12.