VICTORY IN PORT ORANGE, FL

Wal-Mart changes its mind [Daytona News-Journal (Fla.)]

It won’t be super or smaller. Wal-Mart has decided not to build a store at Nova Road and Madeline Avenue, a company official said.

“The land will be put on the market,” said Quenta Vettel, a company spokeswoman who handles government relations in Central Florida.

It would have been the second Wal-Mart store in Port Orange.

The decision is part of a nationwide effort to reduce capital spending for fiscal 2009 amid a slowing U.S. economy, Vettel said.

Several stores planned in the Orlando, Tampa and other central Florida markets also have been cancelled.

A planned second Daytona Beach Wal-Mart Supercenter is still on track, Vettel said. “At this point and time we are moving forward.

No time schedule has been set for when the store will open. First the buildings of Father Lopez High School, which has already moved to a new facility on LPGA Boulevard, must be demolished.

No information was available about a Supercenter planned near the intersection of Moody Boulevard and Old Kings Road in Flagler County.

In March, after concerns that a 128,000-square-foot Supercenter store would not fit on the property at Madeline and Nova, Wal-Mart officials had announced an effort to build a smaller Neighborhood Market.

Port Orange Planning and Development Manger Mike Disher said the letter saying that no store would be forthcoming came as a surprise. “The last meeting we had was in late March. That’s when they said they were going to look into to doing a smaller store,” Disher said.

Posted by Joel Nezianya on Monday, June 23, 2008