Plans to build a Supercenter near Civil War battlefield taking heavy criticism

We’ve been following a story in recent weeks about how Wal-Mart wants to build a 141,000-square-foot supercenter on the edge of Wilderness Battlefield National Park in central Virginia. The plan came under heavy opposition in July by several historical/environmental/civil war preservation groups, collectively known as the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, when they drafted a letter to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott.  The letter expresses the deep concern many feel over the proposed store: 

This Super Wal-Mart would be built within one-quarter mile of the National Park and would pave the way for desecration of the Wilderness with unnecessary commercial growth. Such a large-scale development is inappropriate next to a National Park.

The Civil War Preservation Trust has launched an entire website to spread the word and garner support against the plan. They were quoted this week in an article from NBC-29:

According to Brent Lawrenz of the Civil War Preservation Trust, “It’s going to put a tremendous pressure on Route 20 which is 2 lanes and they’re proposing to re-route part of it through key battleground area.”

Yesterday, the Orange County News[Orange County, VA] published a letter to the editor outlining one man’s anguish and concern for the situation:

The impact on the Wilderness’s environment, rural character and infrastructure costs would be immense and regrettable.
This vast development would be an intrusion against the footprint of a national heritage site, the Civil War’s Wilderness Battlefield, wherein 29,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured, or missing in this battle of May 5 and 6, 1864.

The fact that Wal-Mart is even considering building yards away from an American Civil War battleground further illustrates how estranged the Lee Scott business model is becoming from the Sam Walton version.  Americans are very protective of historical sites, especially one where almost 30,000 Americans lost their lives. Even considering a supercenter for such a location risks deeply offending many of Wal-Mart’s core customers.

But the ball is in Wal-Mart’s court: there isn’t an official development plan in place so they haven’t responded to opposition yet.  Hopefully this one gets buried.

Posted by Luke West on Friday, October 03, 2008

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