IOWA SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART SITE APPROVED IN SHENANDOAH

Topics: | | Community Impact | Iowa | | |

Final plat OK’d for new Wal-Mart [Valley News Today (Iowa)]

The Shenandoah City Council at Tuesday’s meeting approved a preliminary and final plat for the new Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The Supercenter, to be located on property formerly owned by Valley Farms, sits off Highway 59 to the east behind the Shenandoah Elks Lodge and O’Reilly Auto Parts.

Shenandoah’s Planning and Zoning commission approved of the plat at an earlier meeting on Tuesday.

Jason Femrite, a project engineer with Bolton & Menk in Makato, Minn., but representing Wal-Mart, was at the meeting with the plat.

Femrite told the council the plat would be broken into three parcels.

The first would entail the Supercenter itself, the second lot will be deeded to O’Reilly Auto Parts for possible future expansion and the third lot to the south, would be for the relocation of the current Elks Lodge parking lot in exchange for them granting the property for the main access into the Supercenter.

Femrite said the plat includes two 16-foot utility easements along the north and west sides of the property.

The utility easement along the west side pertains to an existing sanitary sewer. Femrite said plans include expanding the 8-foot-wide easement to 16-feet from the property to allow more room to city utilities for maintenance.

Another item discussed included how to service the site with water. Femrite said he spoke with Shenandoah Water Superintendent Kirk Kemper about different options.

“We did some research on the existing water system within your current infrastructure and to meet the needs to sprinkle this store, we needed to extend a 10-inch water main from a location down here from the south, adjacent to the railroad, extend that up and loop that around the building to provide adequate fire protection,” said Femrite.

Femrite added that since they first discussed how to get water to the Supercenter in 2007, a water feasibility study has been adopted by the city that includes future plans for the water system, new trunk lines and the new wastewater treatment plant.

Including information from the study, a 16-inch water main could be extended along the railroad itself to connect the new water plant to the 12-inch that is near the ethanol plant or just south of the railroad.

According to Femrite, instead of them installing this 10-inch up to the site, they may piggyback the project, work together with the city and place a 16-inch to the site. This would add another utility easement, 20-foot-wide, to house the water main.

“We have adequate distance in the development of that property to house that easement and it’ll only make sense that we plat that now and then we can work towards the addition of that water main along that side,” said Femrite.

The plat was approved contingent upon adding the 20-foot-wide easement and the added easement being reviewed and approved by City Attorney Bob Norris.

Now that the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council approved the final plat, Wal-Mart can continue with the development process with the obtaining of the land.

Posted by Luke West on Friday, September 12, 2008