LOOKING AT WHAT’S BEST FOR ABINGDON, VA

Two SW Virginia Towns Have Different Views Of Wal-Mart [Bristol Herald Courier (Va.)]

Sixty miles away in Abingdon, Wal-Mart is the devil to many. Here, Wal-Mart is considered the savior.

“We’re anxiously waiting for Wal-Mart to get started here,” Grundy Mayor Roger Powers said. “I think the entire community is very excited about them coming.”

After flooding of the Levisa River – most notably in 1977 – washed away most of Grundy’s commerce, the town has undergone a state and federally funded flood-control project that means a clean slate.

A 13-acre piece of flat land that was once a mountainside will be the site of a new downtown.

After seven years of blasting and building, the town is on the verge of being officially flood-proof, and most of the commercial buildings that haven’t already been demolished will be soon.
For the creation of 21st-century Grundy, town officials are banking on the world’s largest retailer.

“[With Wal-Mart] Grundy will once again be a vibrant retail center like it was prior to the ’77 flood,” Powers said. “Look at Claypool Hill and Bluefield, Va. – Bluefield, Va., was really dead, and now even their old downtown is really vibrant. Something attracted the people, and Wal-Mart brings a lot of people.”

A poster kept at Town Hall – now an office in an industrial shopping strip on U.S. Highway 460 – shows a centrally located Wal-Mart shopping center planned for the top of a two-story parking deck in the new town center, with other retail, residential and office space.

“This building here will be storefronts,” said Town Manager James Keen. “It will not look like a Wal-Mart or a parking building.”

He said he expects the Wal-Mart here to draw customers from three states, including West Virginians and those who leave Grundy to shop at Wal-Mart stores in Richlands, Va., and Pikeville, Ky.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Kelly Hobbs said no official announcement has been made for the Grundy store because the retailer is still working out its lease agreement; she said the expected opening date for the Abingdon store is spring 2010.

“I can tell you we’re very excited about that project and hope that we will have a lease signed very soon,” Hobbs said of the planned Grundy store. “I can’t say enough about the people in Grundy and about how supportive they’ve been.”

She said she believes opposition in Abingdon is coming from a “vocal minority” and communities that initially oppose Wal-Mart often see the benefits after the store opens.

Powers said he was told by the developer, who could not be reached for comment, to expect completion of the Grundy store in early 2010.

When asked what makes their town different from Abingdon, where opposition to Wal-Mart runs high, the people who live and work here give a simple answer: There’s more in Abingdon.

“If they’re fighting against it [Wal-Mart], it’s because they’ve got places to go shopping,” said Louise Miller, a cook at Italian Village beside the Buchanan County Courthouse. “There’s nothing down here for us. If they had to live here, I think they’d have a different opinion.”

She said Wal-Mart will fill a void and bring more customers to her restaurant in what remains of downtown.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say positive things about it,” Miller said. “I haven’t heard anybody say they don’t want it here.”

Stevie Justus, a Buchanan County resident, said, “We need Wal-Mart. You have to spend $40 in gas to go to Claypool Hill to buy anything.”

Grundy does have a few Wal-Mart critics, although even they are quick to say they don’t oppose it.

“Wal-Mart goes to these economically depressed areas. They know the work force is available and people are desperate for jobs, and they take advantage of that,” said a man who identified himself as a former Wal-Mart employee but would not give his name.

He said he favors the project but “it’s just not going to be the big economic savior everyone thinks it’s going to be.”

Anthony Flaccavento, the leader of Abingdon’s anti-Wal-Mart movement, is inclined to agree.

“I believe that some communities accept a Wal-Mart, perhaps even welcome it, because they believe they have no other options, and want to shop without traveling two counties over,” Flaccavento wrote in an e-mail response to questions from the Herald Courier. “But generally, these stores do not help either the local business base or the economy over the long run.”

Flaccavento’s group, Concerned Citizens for Abingdon’s Future, is leading the organized opposition to a Wal-Mart store that will be built at Exit 14 in Abingdon.

Rather than too far away, opponents of the planned store say Wal-Mart is too close, with another supercenter just seven miles down the road at Bristol’s Exit 7 area.

“Abingdon is on a roll: Barter and William King expansions, the new artisan center soon to be constructed, new downtown restaurants opening on and near Main Street, the fantastic farmers market and more,” Flaccavento wrote. “A huge, one-stop shopping center on the edge of town that makes Abingdon more like every other community in the country, while offering low wages and small businesses of all stripes simply does not make sense.”

The traffic that would be generated also is a major concern and the Virginia Department of Transportation is less than a month away from issuing the permit needed for required upgrades to Exit 14 off Interstate 81.

“They have approval from the Federal Highway Administration on the design, and the next step is for VDOT to issue a permit for them to go in and modify the interchange,” said Steve Buston, VDOT resident engineer. “It’s pretty much a formality.”

Buston said the latest cost estimate for the road improvements is about $8 million.

The interchange redesign, however, has not convinced residents of Whisperwood, one of two subdivisions nearest the site of the planned retail development, who say they likely will be unable to get out of their neighborhood if a Wal-Mart store is built.

“I hope it’s never built here,” said Elizabeth Tayloe, whose house sits near the Jonesboro Road entrance to the subdivision. “We can actually still see stars here every night. I’d like to still be able to do so.”

Tayloe said that while those in Washington County who favor the plan because Exit 14 is closer to home than Exit 7, “I don’t know too many of my neighbors that have been overly enthusiastic about it coming.”

Stephen Wolfsberger, also a Whisperwood resident, summed up neighbors’ concerns.

“I think people are afraid they’re going to get light pollution, noise pollution, they’re going to get traffic pollution,” Wolfsberger said. “The other thing is ... people see what’s happened at Exit 7. They don’t want to see that happen here. ... Some people feel that there’s not a whole lot they can do. And then there are others that are just vehemently opposed to it.”

Another Whisperwood resident, Darlene Conway, said, “This town is so old and historical and nice ... and they’re going to build a Wal-Mart? I don’t understand. We can drive five minutes up the road and be at Wal-Mart and Sam’s [Club] and everywhere else ... go up the road, or the other way, 10 minutes. They’re taking over the world.”

Downtown business owners also are concerned about the negative impact they say Wal-Mart would have on their bottom line.

As those who live in and around Grundy talk excitedly about plans for a Wal-Mart in their community, those who have organized against the retailer in Abingdon are gearing up for round two of their fight to keep it away from the edge of town.

Round one was won on a technicality in 2002; the retail development got no farther than a preliminary plat because VDOT required its own process to lay out improvements to Exit 14 to deal with the increased traffic flow the development would generate.

Since then, the developer, Commonwealth Co., has moved steadily through the approval process to gain the permits necessary for road construction.

Meanwhile, Commonwealth is also seeking a court judgment that would allow the proposed retail development to be considered under the ordinances in effect in 2002, when the project was initially proposed.

Town officials have since added regulations that include the requirement of a special-use permit for buildings larger than 50,000 square feet and the addition of aesthetic restrictions on buildings along main thoroughfares coming into town.

In Abingdon, most town officials won’t comment on the planned Wal-Mart project.

“I don’t have a decision [opinion] on it,” Mayor Lois Humphreys said. “We’ve gone through it over and over and over. It might come and it might not, and I’ve heard it over and over and over and right now I have no opinion.”

She said she thinks public opinion in town is split down the middle on the issue.

Town Manager Greg Kelly said the developer proposing the shopping center has not brought any new plans to the town.

“If it gets back to the table, we will obviously be looking at all the traffic impacts at the various congested areas, and we will be enforcing our existing zoning and subdivision ordinance to the letter of the law,” Kelly said. “If it comes, I and the council and all of our staff will strongly push to make sure it’s very aesthetically appealing.”

One member of the Town Council has stated his opposition, one has stated a view in favor and two have declined to give an opinion. The fifth seat on the council is changing hands after last month’s election – to someone who has stated opposition to Wal-Mart.

Some Abingdon residents are digging in their heels to keep Wal-Mart out, even as, just 60 miles away in Grundy, Wal-Mart is the basket of hopes and dreams.

Keen, the Grundy town manager said, “I just see a vibrant town 10 years from now, all hinging on the developer coming through.”