Springfield, IL. Wal-Mart Meeting Draws Big Crowd

Dozens gather to hear latest Wal-Mart plan for west side [Springfield Journal-Register (Ill.)]

About 75 people showed up for a meeting Monday night on plans for a Wal-Mart supercenter on the west side of Springfield, even though no one is quite sure yet exactly where the retailer would like to build.

The informational meeting at the Knights of Columbus hall on Meadowbrook Road was organized by the Southwest Springfield Neighborhood Association, which led a more than three-year fight against Wal-Mart’s earlier effort to build a store on Wabash Avenue between Meadowbrook and Archer Elevator roads.

Wal-Mart dropped those plans in 2007. The new site is thought to be just south and west of the first location.

“We don’t want to give anyone the impression that is the specific location they identified to us,” association chairman Roger Kanerva told the group. “Generally, that’s the way they described it to us.”

Wal-Mart representatives recently met with Kanerva and association attorney John Myers to discuss plans for a west-side store. The city’s first supercenter opened in 2001 on North Dirksen Parkway, and a second supercenter is scheduled to open this summer at Sixth Street and Hazel Dell Road.

While a site has not been finalized, Kanerva said it most likely would be on the south side of Wabash, just east of AT&T and Wells Fargo. The front of the store would face Wabash and the back would face Interstate 72.

The 41-acre site also would include room for parking and out-lot retail development.

Myers said a 24-hour supercenter would add 11,000 vehicles a day to a stretch of road that already exceeds its design capacity. Although Wal-Mart would widen the section of Wabash Avenue in front of the store, that would not help the rest of the Wabash, Myers said.

Access to the store also is an issue.

“There are going to be some serious adverse off-site impacts of this Wal-Mart supercenter, and it’s going to absolutely change life on the west end,” Myers said. “Imagine what it’s going to be like trying to get on the interstate from your house on a Saturday morning with all the Wal-Mart shoppers.”

At least a portion of the site identified by the association also would have to be rezoned from industrial to retail. Myers said, if a rezoning request were filed, there would be an opportunity for residents to raise questions.

“Some of you folks may be for it, some of you may be against it, but the zoning process is the opportunity for the neighborhood to have a direct effect on it,” Myers said.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, May 06, 2008

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