Chesterton, IN. Wal-Mart Returns Seven Months Later With Plans
Chesterton Indiana describes itself as a “small, yet quickly growing town.” It is the gateway to the Indiana Dunes State Park, with a 2006 population of roughly 12,500, which grows substantially during the summer months, when thousands of tourists visit annually. One of those visitors was Wal-Mart.
Local residents got their first close-up look at a proposed Wal-Mart supercenter in November of 2007. The retailer presented the Chesterton Advisory Plan Commission at a “concept review” meeting with a massive 304,977 s.f. Coffee Creek Crossing retail/commercial center. The 50-acre development is located at the southeast corner of the Indiana Toll Road and State Road 49. Developer Robert Rossman of I-80 Partners, LLC, told the Chesterton Tribune that negotiations were underway with Wal-Mart. “I think that’s one of the considerations.”
Local residents were puzzled by this announcement, since there is a Wal-Mart supercenter just 7 miles away in Portage, Indiana, a second supercenter 10 miles away in Michigan City, and a third Wal-Mart supercenter 11 miles away in Valparaiso, Indiana. I-80 Partners proposed dividing their property up into 109 lots, including 15.5 acres for the 156,399 s.f. Wal-Mart. In 2006, Chesterton rejected a proposed Target and Kohl’s project because of traffic concerns.
At the time, the developer himself predicted that response to Wal-Mart in Chesterton would be mixed. The state Department of Transportation indicated that roadwork would have to be done on a curve approaching the store, and the developer agreed to set aside land for the construction of a watertower for the town. Coffee Creek Crossing sought a variance from zoning rules to build five-story buildings up to 70 feet tall on two lots, and permission for a possible parking garage. A second traffic light on Route 49 would have to be added. “As ground becomes more scarce, people are going vertical and developments being proposed have those variables in them,” the developer told the Plan Commission. At that first concept review, local residents came to Town Hall to oppose the plan. According to The Tribune, Coffee Creek Crossing met strong opposition from nearby residents who never thought a mall would locate in their rural area.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, June 18 | 0 comments | Permalink
Newberry, PA. Wal-Mart Plan Sits Atop A Steep Slope
Thirteen years ago, a woman in Newberry township, Pennsylvania wrote a letter to Wal-Mart’s president, David Glass, in the form of a petition to encourage the retailer to come to her small town. Glass indicated he was interested in the woman’s efforts to attract a Wal-Mart supercenter to her community. The woman said she was shocked that Glass even responded to her. “I was shocked when I got this,” the Newberry resident said “I could have died.” The resident wanted Wal-Mart to consider replacing the Jamesway department store---a regional chain that was killed off by Wal-Mart---in the Newberry Commons shopping center. Newberry Township, population roughly 15,000, describes itself as “a growing residential community situated between Harrisburg and York…a progressive Township, which is looking at its future growth by updating the Township’s Comprehensive Plan, Zoning and Land Development and Subdivision Ordinances.”
Apparently none of the township’s updates dealt with the impact of big box stores on small communities. There’s already a Wal-Mart discount store in Montoursville, Pennsylvania just 8 miles away. Thirteen years after that resident wrote to Wal-Mart, there still is no giant retailer in Newberry---but not because local officials aren’t trying. In March of 2008, officials in Newberry approved a Wal-Mart Supercenter on Old Trail Road, after more than two years of talks and concessions by the developer, Pacific Development. But this week the Patriot-News reports that the store is still hung up in red tape. “If that goes in, it will be the biggest commercial development we’ve had,” Newberry Supervisor Carl Hughes told the newspaper. “It would really help our tax base. We didn’t have to raise taxes last year, and Wal-Mart should help us not raise taxes next year.” But the ground-breaking was supposed to happen in May for “Newberry Pointe.” The Patriot-News says that local officials are getting increasingly frustrated by the delay. The ball is reportedly in the York County Conservation District’s court. “There’s just a lot of things that they want to be sure of, that we’ve got the flow going the right way, that there won’t be flooding,” explained a spokesman for Pacific Development.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, June 17 | 0 comments | Permalink
NMHC’s Walkable Communities Toolkit
Urban planning is a major part of building sustainable communities, and a new toolkit from National Multi Housing Coalition (NMHC) will help planners and residents work together to create walkable communities. As NMHC president Doug Bibby explains, “In many communities, sprawling suburban style development has been the rule for so long that their leaders don’t know the best way to create walkable, human-scale neighborhoods.” The toolkit offers case studies, policy tips and guidelines for those interested in planning walkable communities.
Wal-Mart is a huge part of this. As we’ve said before on this blog, the retailer depends on urban sprawl in a number of ways, and walkable communities are a huge threat to its business model. They’re also one of the most sustainable ways to build, something which Wal-Mart rarely acknowledges in its green messaging. NMHC has a ton more info - and links to other reports - on their website.
Demand for walkable, compact development is at an all-time high thanks to rising fuel costs, changing lifestyles and pressure to manage growth. To help communities across the country meet this demand, the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) and the Urban Land Institute have partnered to produce a new toolkit publication, Getting Density Right: Tools for Creating Vibrant Compact Development.
“Just five years ago, ‘density’ was a four-letter word,” said NMHC President Doug Bibby. “Now, though, consumers are embracing more urban lifestyles—from walkable villages to full-fledged city living. And local officials, under pressure to manage growth, are eager to deliver the compact development people are clamoring for.”
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Posted by Enviro. Team on Monday, June 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
Atascadero, CA. Residents Reach Signature Goal To Put Size Cap On Ballot
This week, a voter initiative petition designed to prevent big box stores in Atascadero, California gathered the necessary 1,511 signatures to be presented to the city council. On June 24th, the City Council could vote to adopt the initiative as part of the city’s ordinance, or they could vote to put the measure on the November 4, 2008 ballot. The council could also ask for a study to examine the impact of the measure, before taking any further action. Since July 6, 2006, Sprawl-Busters has written 9 articles about Atascadero, California’s battle against a Wal-Mart supercenter. For two years, Wal-Mart has generated nothing but controversy. On October 30, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that the City Council in Atascadero had voted 4-1 to require city staff to stop processing a Wal-Mart proposal for a 195,000 s.f. store on Del Rio Road.
Then-Mayor George Luna said at the time that continuing the review process would only prolong the inevitable defeat of the proposal. “I don’t see the reason for getting more information on a store I would never vote for,” the Mayor told the media. The city’s General Plan has a limit of 150,000 s.f. for big box stores—but the zoning ordinance has no such limit.
On December 18, 2007 local residents filed an initiative petition entitled “Taxpayers’ Initiative Ordinance To Reduce Costly Effects Of High Intensity Urban Development By Preserving Atascadero’s Unique Small Town Character.” According to the group Oppose Wal-Mart, the measure will ask the voters to amend the Atascadero Zoning Ordinances to approve a maximum limitation (cap) of 150,000 s.f. on the size of any single big box commercial structure and prohibit discount superstores in all zoning districts of the city.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, June 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
Amherst, NY. Court Rules Against Wal-Mart Opponents
On January 12, 2006, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart wanted to build a supercenter in the floodplains of Amherst, New York. Residents in Amherst told Sprawl-Busters: “Wal-Mart is trying to get a site plan for a new Supercenter approved to be built near the corner of New Road and Millersport Highway. This would be wrong on so many levels. Most of the property is in the 100 year floodplain of Ransom Creek and development in this area would upset the delicate balance of flooding and stormwater drainage in the entire region. Amherst is an area with poorly drained soils, septic tanks and stormwater ditches. Sanitary and stormwater drainage problems already exist here. This area also has no large retail areas, so traffic and sprawl are only beginning to affect these areas, which are mainly residential and rural. A Wal-Mart development in this area will bring people, which brings other retail development, which brings more traffic and further sprawl. There are already 2 Wal-Mart facilities in or near Amherst: A supercenter on Transit Road only miles from this site and another large Wal-Mart on Niagara Falls Blvd, not far from this site. These stores are on the outer Western and Eastern boundaries of Amherst. There is also a Wal-Mart south of Amherst in Cheektowaga. This is possibly being put forth now before the new Supervisor and Town board can complete the process of developing limits on new development, especially in floodplains and wetland areas.”
By September 7, 2006, Sprawl-Busters updated the Amherst story when the town’s Board of Supervisors voted to rezone 30 parcels of land, including one that was proposed for a Wal-Mart supercenter. The rezoning made Wal-Mart’s no longer appropriate for the site. The vote on the superstore parcel was 6-1 to rezone. The attorney for the Cimato Brothers Development, who owns the land on Millersport Highway, told the Amherst Record that there would be legal action in the future. “On behalf of the property owners there will be a lawsuit. It’s an illegal rezoning. It’s solely to prevent Wal-Mart.”
The newspaper said local officials rezoned the land because of environmental impact concerns, including the presence of flood plains and wetlands in north Amherst. “The rezoning is a tactical requirement — it is a design need,” Amherst Supervisor Satish Mohan told the newspaper. “You cannot put people of the future in an area that will not support them. There is no drainage.” Amherst Councilman Bill Kindel indicated that he wanted the town to issue a $7 million bond to prevent development on large tracts of northern Amherst, setting aside the area for farm land, open space and flood control. One of the bonds would reserve a plot of land near Millersport Highway developers wanted to use for a Wal-Mart.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, June 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
Moon, PA. Residents Organize To Fight The Best Wal-Mart
Sometimes even the best just isn’t good enough.
In Moon, Pennsylvania, the Chairman of the township’s board of Supervisors has been wrestling with Wal-Mart’s application to build a 148,561 s.f. superstore on the site of an abandoned 1960s-era mall known as the West Hills Shopping Center, located on one of the community’s major intersections, University Boulevard and Brodhead road. There are also two major housing developments abutting the project on its western side. “We are working toward our No 1 goal,” Supervisor Chairman Tim McLaughlin told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette this week. “To have the best Wal-Mart in Western Pennsylvania.”
There’s lots of competition, because Wal-Mart has 15 stores within 25 miles of Moon, including a Wal-Mart three miles away from this site. Since 1954, the Pittsburgh International Airport has played an important role in the growth of Moon Township. In 1992 the Pittsburgh International Airport terminal relocated from Moon to the adjacent township of Findlay, taking with it a great deal of airport-related traffic, altering the University Boulevard’s identity as an airport service corridor. Township officials developed a plan that would maintain the corridor’s commercial success, and guide the future growth and sustainability of development in this thoroughfare.
That plan was the Beers School Road Strategic Plan, which included a conceptual design for improvements to University Boulevard to improve traffic flow, enhance pedestrian access and mobility and develop streetscape improvements. The plan recommended implementing urban design changes to the corridor such as landscaping, sidewalks, building facades, public amenities and a gateway.
The plan was presented and approved by the Moon Township Board of Supervisors in 2003. The township went further, and created the University Boulevard Overlay district, a tool to implement their strategic plan for the area. Then Wal-Mart entered the picture, and the strategic plan went out the window. In January of 2007, the public learned that the West Hills Shopping Center, had been sold to Wal-Mart for $4.7 million.
During their review of Wal-Mart’s preliminary plan, the Supervisors quickly became concerned over the potential traffic congestion at the already difficult intersection. Chairman McLaughlin told Wal-Mart representatives at the end of April that he didn’t want to go to his grave knowing that his board was responsible for creating a traffic gridlock, according to the Post-Gazette. “We have a quality of life that is outstanding,” McLaughlin said. “We want to protect our resident’s quality of life. We don’t want the center of our township to became a gridlock.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Friday, June 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
Cudahy, WI. Commissioner Changes Vote, Wal-Mart Approved
Local land use decisions are 90% politics, 10% science. Even though a Wal-Mart superstore in Cudahy, Wisconsin is incompatible with the city’s growth plans, and even though the Planning Commission rejected it once, the developers kept the pressure on and found one Plan Commission member weak enough to switch his vote. On May 24, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart had lost a Plan Commission vote in Cudahy, Wisconsin. But losing a vote and losing the battle are not the same thing to Wal-Mart.
The retailer decided to give Cuhahy a second chance, and return with some design changes to a June 10th meeting of the Plan Commission. Cudahy is a small community with just over 18,000 people with the motto, “Generations of Pride.” The vision for the city’s future is a revitalized downtown that will become the “heart of the South Shore.” The city is right in the middle of updating its Comprehensive Plan, and one of its most prominent goals is creating a “vital downtown.” The emphasis is on high quality of life, and pedestrian-oriented development. The idea of a new Wal-Mart supercenter ran into rough going in Cudahy from the start. The community doesn’t need another Wal-Mart.
There are currently ten Wal-Mart’s within 20 miles of Cudahy, including a discount store 5 miles away in Milwaukee, and a supercenter 18 miles away in Sturtevant, Wisconsin. There are two Wal-Mart Supercenters opening about 5 miles away on S. 27th St in Franklin and in Milwaukee. Also Woodmans recently opened a 200,000 plus sq ft store in Oak Creek which is all grocery, roughly 5 miles away. The idea of a supercenter surfaced in November of 2007, when Wal-Mart offered to build their store in an abandoned site called Iceport.
According to CudahyNow, many of the 100 people who came to that first information meeting were cool to the idea of the retailer using the Iceport parcel. “We do not need another outlet for cheap Chinese crap,” one of the evening’s speaker bluntly stated. The developer, Continental Properties, outlined tentative plans for the “Cudahy Station,” on a 26-acre parcel south of East Layton Avenue. The company’s purchase agreement is with Sportsites LLC, which planned at one point to develop the Powerade Iceport, a regional ice hockey center. The $35 million project fell through in 2003. If Continental’s plans fall through, the city has the right to take back ownership of the site. Continental is in a hurry, because the deadline for the land sale is July 1st. The Cudahy Wal-Mart was presented as a 137,577 s.f. store. This is on the smaller end of Wal-Mart supercenters, but a company spokeswoman added, “We need to start looking at some of these smaller prototypes because that is what the customer wants. (The Cudahy store) would be a more flexible prototype, something that you have never seen before.” Continental said in another phase of the project a hotel and convention center was planned, plus a water park or business incubator.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, June 11 | 0 comments | Permalink
West Dundee, IL. Tale Of Two Cities Battling Over Wal-Mart
On April 5, 2006, Sprawl-Busters reported that the village of East Dundee, Illinois was in an uproar because a real estate listing showed that the Wal-Mart discount store # 1531 in the village was being advertised as available for lease or sale by the winter of 2007, and that a larger superstore was going to be built in neighboring West Dundee. East Dundee Village President Jerald Bartels met with local Wal-Mart officials, who seemed as surprised as he was. The East Dundee store was not officially posted on the Wal-Mart Realty website. “We have no official word from Wal-Mart that anything is happening at this point,” officials said at the time. But Wal-Mart officials eventually told the village it was shutting down its store in East Dundee to move to West Dundee. The store in West Dundee will be less than 2 miles from the existing store in East Dundee.
One local official described Wal-Mart’s move from East Dundee as a “body blow” to village finances. “Wal-Mart has confirmed that they are actively in the process of identifying a new site for a super center,” announced Village Manager Paul Nicholson, after meeting with Wal-Mart officials. The Wal-Mart discount store on Dundee Avenue in East Dundee is now about 20 years old-—which is ancient by Wal-Mart standards. The East Dundee store generates about $600,000 a year in sales tax revenues for the village-—a gross number, before subtracting out the substantial municipal expenses, such as police, fire and road maintenance. East Dundee Village President Dan O’Leary said his community would lose 15% of its service-related funds when Wal-Mart shuts down. “I am guessing we could see a $600,000 cut from our $4 million operating budget,” O’Leary said. “That could mean a reduction in services like police and public works, and then we just run out of places to cut back.”
West Dundee officials seemed to have little qualms about stealing revenues from their neighbor. West Dundee’s Village Manager admitted that Wal-Mart was negotiating with General Growth Properties Inc., the owner of Spring Hill Mall, for a mall out lot that was commercially zoned. To make matters worse, it appears that East Dundee will make the transfer of location possible through a deal between the two villages in which the East provides sewer services for West Dundee. So the West will be able to offer sewer to the new 186,000 s.f. Wal-Mart stolen from East Dundee, by using East Dundee’s sewer system. On April 27, 2008, Sprawl-Busters updated this “tale of two cities.” Anticipating Wal-Mart would close, East Dundee cut its budget 6%, and then another 10% this year. “If we could get a final decision from Wal-Mart, we could take advantage of other opportunities in the area,” one village official said.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, June 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
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