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"We would expect to at least be in construction in 2006," said Eric Berger, the Northwest Region community affairs manager for the Arkansas-based discount retailer, from his Seattle office Wednesday.

Corporate officials haven't yet decided whether it will be one of the company's discount stores or a supercenter offering groceries, as Fred Meyer does 1½ miles up Glacier Highway from the site. The remodeled size and scope of the Kmart store will determine how many people Wal-Mart will employ.

Wal-Mart's purchase sets Juneau up for a convergence of retail giants. Oregon-based Fred Meyer in November announced plans to increase its Juneau store's floor space by 40 percent in 2006. In December, Georgia-based Home Depot announced it was looking for property in the Lemon Creek area.

Kmart, headquartered in Michigan, left its Lemon Creek-area store in April 2003, several months after the company announced it would close all five of its Alaska stores, among 326 total closings, during bankruptcy reorganization. Kmart began operating in Juneau in 1993 and expanded into a Super Kmart outlet in 2001.

"There's good and bad," said Kris Lofthus. When she lived in a Nebraska town with a Wal-Mart, the store wasn't her favorite place to shop, she said.

"I'm not sure how they treat their employees," she said, adding that she would want to know the people who work there are getting good wages and benefits.

Ray Preston said he is bothered by the "Wal-Martization of America," and that he has read about what it has done to Southern California.

The University of California-Berkeley Labor Center in 2004 determined that Wal-Mart employees in California sought $86 million in state aid to supplement their incomes. The researcher concluded that the company was shifting part of its labor costs to the public.

Wal-Mart responded by saying the chain employs more than 60,000 people in California, pays competitive wages and gives jobs to people who would otherwise be unemployed.

"I care about people being paid an amount of money that allows them to live," Preston said.

Kathy Goddard said she won't be "clamoring" to shop at Wal-Mart but may stop in for something once it opens. "I like small shops."

Nonetheless, she said she is glad a company is filling the space. "The Kmart building is a waste."

"Big business is going to shut down small businesses," Yumi Arimitsu said while shopping.

Juneau City Manager Rod Swope said the city will benefit from having a new large retailer doing business in the vacant Kmart site, he said. Wal-Mart will increase the property's value, increasing the city's tax base, although it is too early to say by how much.

A larger commercial and industrial tax base will mean the property tax rates can be set lower to raise what the city needs to operate.

"When you get more businesses - Wal-Mart, Home Depot or the Kensington Mine, no matter what you think of them - it lowers the amount of property taxes people have to pay," Swope said.

• Tony Carroll can be reached at tony.carroll@juneauempire.com.