Evansville, IN. Wal-Mart Plays Cards Close to Chest

Wal-Mart quiet on North store [Evansville Courier & Press]

As Wal-Mart officials plan a supercenter for along Indiana 66 at Newburgh, Ind., they are keeping mum about whether or not they’re still planning a supercenter for Evansville’s North Side.

Jason Wetzel, a spokesman for Wal-Mart’s regional office in Indianapolis, declined to reveal the status of Wal-Mart’s earlier plans to have a supercenter built along U.S. 41 North, between Lynch Road and Pigeon Creek. That store was first proposed in early 2004.

“We’re always looking for new opportunities to grow,” Wetzel said when asked about the proposal this week.

In preliminary plans filed with the Evansville-Vanderburgh Area Plan Commission in 2004, Wal-Mart officials indicated they would like a main entrance off U.S. 41 and a traffic light installed in the area of the proposed supercenter.

The Wal-Mart officials appeared to be aware of potential traffic problems and agreed to having a traffic impact study done, city transportation officials reported.

Since then officials of the Indiana Department of Transportation in Vincennes, Ind., and local officials said no such study was ever filed by Wal-Mart.

The proposed Wal-Mart site included 28 acres of land just behind Drury Inn and across U.S. 41 from where the new Vanderburgh County Jail sits.

The Princeton Mining Co., owner of the site, had presented the plans for the Wal-Mart store to the Area Plan Commission at the time.

It’s believed Wal-Mart officials were eying at least one other North Side location, which they didn’t identify.

Meanwhile, plans for the Newburgh Wal-Mart Supercenter are tentative, company officials said this week.

It’s uncertain whether Wal-Mart will lease or buy the 22 acres of land on which the proposed 176,000-square-foot store would be built in Bellmoore Landing Subdivision.

Greg Moore, an Evansville area developer with Moore Holding Group, presently owns the 22 acres, plus a little more than 48 acres in the same area for potential retail development.

Kadee Hemmer, a deputy assessor for Warrick County, said Moore payed nearly $3.6 million for all 70.643 acres in 2006 when he purchased the land from Barbara Feldman Philka and Elaine Feldman.

Public hearings before the Warrick County Area Plan Commission are scheduled for Oct. 10 to seek approval of drainage, traffic and other building plans for the Newburgh supercenter.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, September 14, 2007

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