Kentucky Site Fight: Wal-Mart Gives Up

Wal-Mart scraps Florence plan [Cincinnati Post]

Fort Mitchell attorney Jeff Shipp doesn’t know if he’s seen the last of the Wal-Mart Corp.’s attempts to build a super store in Florence.

But he’s sure that if there is a next time, the group he represented in the fight against the plan, Boone County Citizens for Responsible Growth, will be ready.

“That same core group of 50 to 75 people we worked with will be prepared to look at these things with a jaded eye and a magnifying glass,” he said.

On Wednesday, just hours before the Boone County Planning Commission was to consider the project, Wal-Mart withdrew its application for a zone change on the property it had targeted at the intersection of U.S. 42 and Weaver Road.

That settles the issue, at least for now, the commission’s executive director, Kevin Costello, said.

Last week, after several hearings on the project, the commission’s zone-change committee voted 3-1 to recommend the full commission turn down the request.

Shipp’s clients had gathered 5,000 signatures on a petition against the new store. Their objections mainly centered on traffic, but also touched on issues that Wal-Marts always create, such as its impact on existing businesses.

If Wal-Mart wants to pursue the zone change, it will have to submit another application and go through the same review process as before, Costello said.

Paul Hemmer Cos. hopes that it does.

Fort Mitchell-based Hemmer owns some of the property in question and has options to buy the rest, Mike Hargis, vice president for Real Estate Operations, said. His company is helping to facilitate the site to Wal-Mart.

“The decision that Wal-Mart made was a result of the questions asked at the zone-change committee meeting,” he said. “This will give us additional time to perhaps address some of the traffic issues that came about. I think it keeps their options open.”

Wal-Mart spokesman Jason Wetzel could not be reached for comment.

The company had applied to build a 184,000-square-foot store on a lot left vacant since a warehouse burned to the ground in 2004.

The company offered $1.5 million in street improvements to facilitate traffic around the site. The planning commission, the city of Florence and Wal-Mart all hired engineers to study the traffic problem.

The engineers suggested synchronizing stoplights on the streets, adding left-turn-only lanes at the intersection of Weaver and U.S. 42 and adding another light at the entrance to the new store. Their consensus was that the plan would maintain or improve the traffic flow at the intersection, even after construction of the store.

About 40,000 vehicles travel the mile of U.S. 42 between Weaver Road and Interstate 75/71 every day, the commission reported.

Wal-Mart owns 15 SuperCenters in the tri-state, including one on Houston Road in Florence, less than 3 miles from the proposed site for the new store. Others are under construction in Fairfax, Colerain Township and Cleves in Ohio.

Wal-Mart has said it needs the new store because its Houston Road store has become so popular it’s “overshopped.”

The new store would have only worsened the already bad traffic problem on U.S. 42 in Union and all the way north to Ky. 18, Shipp said.

Runoff from the store’s water-retention basins would have seeped into Gunpowder Creek, an already troubled waterway, he said.

He credited his clients for getting opponents of the projects to the public hearings, and the planning commission and its staff for their attention to the issue.

“They were very much what one should be in this role,” he said of the commissioners. “The winners are the people of Boone County.”