Walmart abruptly announced Friday that it was abandoning a promise to build stores in Washington's poorest neighborhoods, an agreement that had been key to the deal allowing the retailer to begin operating in the nation's capital.

The giant retailer cited increasing costs for the new projects and disappointing performance at the three D.C. stores it opened over the past several years. But news that Walmart would pull out of two supercenters planned for east of the Anacostia River, where its wares and jobs are wanted most, shocked D.C. leaders. In one case, the city had already committed $90 million to make a development surrounding one of the stores viable.

"I'm blood mad," D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said at a Friday news conference.

"It's an outrage," said former mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), who in 2013 completed the handshake deal for the stores. "This is devastating and disrespectful to the residents of the East End of the District of Columbia."