Venice, FL. Community Pushes to Reject Wal-Mart

Venice community opposes Wal-Mart [Herald Tribune (Fla.)]

Nobody complained about the movie theater. The bank was OK, too.

But Wal-Mart just does not mesh with the ritzy Venetian Golf & River Club down the street, say some residents, who are trying to stop the company’s proposed Laurel Road store.

“Wal-Mart would destroy the community that can economically support quality shops,” wrote Venetian residents Ronni and Cos Mallozzis in an e-mail to the city this week.

Area residents are pushing for the city to reject the 200,000-square-foot Wal-Mart as an anchor for the 73-acre Renaissance development east of Interstate 75. Wal-Mart hopes to ease residents’ concerns when the project goes before Venice’s planning commission Tuesday.

The company will likely find dozens of protesters.

Their complaint is a new twist on an old argument against a company some people love to hate. The attitude also illustrates how this growing area of the city is struggling to define itself.

Wal-Mart has often been accused of destroying Main Street America by pricing out small mom-and-pop stores. But north Venice, a community slated for nearly 9,000 homes, has no downtown area.

In fact, the only retail development nearby is a gas station. The nearest grocery store is five miles away.

So folks living in the area were excited when Venice-based developer Mike Miller proposed a mix of shopping, restaurants, office space, housing and entertainment for the Renaissance project.

That was before they learned recently that the development would feature Wal-Mart.

“We really need commercial development, but we need the right kind of commercial development,” said Venetian Golf & River Club resident John Moeckel, who organized a write-in campaign against the project this week as chairman of the local community association.

Moeckel insists that his objection has nothing to do with Wal-Mart as a company. His main concern is the size of the store and the increased traffic it will bring to a two-lane section of Laurel Road.

“We’d like to see a reasonably sized grocery store, like a Publix, that would generate less traffic,” Moeckel said.

But traffic only partly explains the opposition.

A Wal-Mart Supercenter generates about 432 extra cars on the road during peak traffic hours, according to traffic data submitted with Miller’s proposal.

That is less than a quarter of the 1,854 hourly trips Miller’s development will generate when everything is completed. Numbers show the proposed bank rivals Wal-Mart in hourly car trips, with 394.

And before Wal-Mart opens, Miller would have to build nearly a half-mile of new turn lanes and make other road improvements.

The larger issue, some residents argue, is that north Venice is a blank slate commercially, and Wal-Mart could stifle the lively, walkable commercial core they envision.

They want boutiques, not big boxes, and claim city leaders promised the features when the land was annexed from Sarasota County.

“The original plan resembled many attractive mixed-use town centers that you see in Florida,” wrote Grant and Cheryl Levis in an e-mail to the city. “Is there anything more ugly than a Wal Mart???”

Similar complaints have plagued Wal-Mart as the company tries to expand into Southwest Florida’s wealthier enclaves.

While stores in working-class areas like North Port and Palmetto have generated little opposition, Wal-Marts proposed near more upscale neighborhoods along University Parkway and Fruitville Road both were denied in 2004, ostensibly because of traffic concerns, even as another big box store was approved on one of the same roads.

Few people overtly say they just do not like Wal-Mart, and for good reason.

“We can say you have to meet these standards, whether for road work or architecturally,” said Venice City Manager Marty Black. “We can’t just say we don’t want a particular business.”

Miller did not return telephone messages Thursday.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Michelle Azel said she hopes that some of the opposition will dissipate when residents see the store’s design Tuesday at the planning commission meeting.

“I’m not sure the imagery some of these naysayers have in their mind,” she said. “Perhaps it’s some of the older models of stores, but we’ve tried very hard to blend in to the communities we serve.”