My previous blog was about why moving your retail store could be a positive thing. As I troll the Web for interesting topics, I continue to see more and more articles about how cities and developers are trying to lure small retailers. Apparently, so is the supposed enemy of small retailers: Wal-Mart.

This story from the Galesburg Register-Mail in Illinois really grabbed my attention. It seems that the new Wal-Mart Supercenter in town has left the big-box retailer with a 105,627-square-foot problem: Its original Wal-Mart store is empty with quite a lot of time left on its lease. So Wal-Mart wants to sublease the building in chunks of at least 20,000 square feet.

The location sounds great, with tens of thousands of motorists driving by each day. And “Wal-Mart has a design team that helps new tenants using only a portion of the building figure out how best to reconfigure it for their uses.”

This sounds like an ideal opportunity to me. Tenants who sublease from Wal-Mart in other previously vacant stores are doing very well, according to the article. And Wal-Mart says it’s committed to helping them succeed.

Of course, this begs the question of how small retailers can cope when Wal-Mart brings just one store to the area. As real estate pros and I have said before, try to get close to it. If you have to move, it’s probably worth it. Differentiate your store through great customer service and by stocking merchandise Wal-Mart won’t touch. Moving into an old Wal-Mart or near an existing one could be the antidote to your big-box fears.