ARIZONA SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART PUSHES FORWARD WITH ARIZONA SUPERCENTERS

Wal-Mart pushes forward with Arizona supercenters [Arizona Republic]
Wal-Mart plans to slow its growth, but not necessarily in Arizona.

The company said on Friday, during its annual shareholder meeting, that it plans to reduce the number of supercenters to be opened nationwide this year by nearly 30 percent, or roughly 75 stores.

The store pullback is the second in less than six months, but it won’t immediately impact Arizona’s growth plans, said Delia Garcia, a local spokeswoman who attended the shareholder meeting.

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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Tuesday, June 05 | 0 comments | Permalink

COLORADO SITE FIGHT: OPINIONS VARY ON WAL-MART IN WINSOR

Opinions vary on Wal-Mart in Windsor [The Coloradoan]
BY ASHLEY KEESIS

Windsor residents had mixed reactions to Wal-Mart’s impending arrival.

Last week, Windsor Planning Department staff confirmed that consultants for a developer who owns the property submitted plans for the retail giant to build a 190,000-square-foot supercenter on the northwest corner of 17th and Main streets.

The plans include a 10,600-square-foot garden center and a grocery store. Earlier plans for a tire and lube center have been dropped.

“Hooray, hooray, hooray,” said Windsor resident Leona Bernhardt, a member of the Windsor Association For Economic Responsibility. “We’ve worked hard to get them here and we’ve wanted them here.”

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Posted by Jason Korta on Monday, June 04 | 0 comments | Permalink

COLORADO SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART COMING TO WINDSOR

Wal-Mart coming to Windsor [The Coloradoan]
Wal-Mart will build a supercenter in Windsor after all.

Windsor Planning Department staff confirmed Wednesday afternoon that the retail giant has submitted plans to build a 190,000-square-foot big-box store on the northeast corner of 17th and Main streets.

Scott Ballstadt, Windsor senior planner, said a staff meeting will be held at 9 a.m. today to review the newly submitted plans and see if they address concerns the town board raised before it approved development and annexation plans last August for the big-box site on Main Street.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, June 01 | 0 comments | Permalink

TEXAS SITE FIGHT: NORTHCROSS GROUP: WAL-MART TRAFFIC STUDY FLAWED

Northcross Group: Wal-Mart Traffic Study Flawed [CBS-TV Austin]

CBS 42) AUSTIN The war over a proposed Wal-Mart at the old Northcross Mall in North Austin wages on.

Neighbors with a group called Responsible Growth for Northcross are taking aim at a new study analyzing the traffic the new superstore would generate.

They say the study undercuts just how many cars will hit the city streets en route to the new store.

There is no doubt the big box giant would draw a crowd of customers and a cluster of cars. About 15,000 round trips are expected on any given day.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, June 01 | 0 comments | Permalink

ARIZONA SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART ASKS VOTERS TO REPEAL GROCERY LIMITS

Wal-Mart asks voters to repeal grocery limits [Arizona Daily Star]

Big-box retailing is back as a big issue in Tucson. Again.

Wal-Mart has started a petition drive that, if approved by voters in November, would repeal a key provision of Tucson’s big-box ordinance.

Wal-Mart filed papers late last week to create the “Consumer Choice Initiative,” which would repeal the portion of the city’s big-box ordinance restricting food and beverage sales to no more than 10 percent of the store’s total space.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Wednesday, May 30 | 0 comments | Permalink

Texas Site Fight: Wal-Mart Meets with Southside Residents

Wal-Mart meets with Southside residents [Corpus Christi Caller-Times]

Increased traffic problems topped the list of residents’ concerns at an open house for a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter on the city’s Southside.

Security and safety concerns also were among comments from the more than 350 residents who attended the meeting at Second Baptist Church, 6701 S. Staples, on Thursday.

“People will do what they have to do to avoid the traffic on Staples, and I don’t want my kids to be in danger when they are playing in the yard,” said Charles Deason, who lives in the Barkley Grove subdivision.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, May 25 | 0 comments | Permalink

Oklahoma & Texas. Wal-Mart Supercenters Create More Traffic Than Projected

If there is a Bible in the world of traffic engineers, it is the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Manual, which is currently in its Seventh edition. This manual is cited in most zoning cases involving big box stores, and developers play games when using this manual, knowing that most Planning & Zoning Board members are not familiar with its contents or methodology. Because traffic is a major issue in most site fights, community groups often have to hire their own traffic engineers to do a “peer review” of whatever numbers the developer produces. One frequent game developers play is to use an inappropriate “land use code” to describe a Wal-Mart superstore. A developer may call their project a “shopping center,” which is land use code 820, or they may use code 813, which is a free-standing discount superstore, land use code 813. But this latter code is based on a supercenter averaging 161,000 s.f. Both the shopping center code and the 813 supercenter code substantially underestimate the actual car trips that the largest superstores now being proposed will produce. To verify this concern, researchers from the ITE studied 5 superstores in Oklahoma and Texas, with an average footprint of 213,210 s.f. The ITE engineers placed staff at the driveways of each facility, and studied traffic counts from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm, which was considered the peak weekday hour for these stores. These counts were used to establish the car trips per 1,000 s.f. during the evening peak hour.
These traffic counts were actually done in July and October of 2003, but the results were not published in the ITE Journal newsletter until August of 2006. The ITE staff divided the total amount of car trips in and out of the driveways, and then divided them by the size of the store, expressed in 1,000 square feet. For example, one store had 756 car trips in the driveway, and 708 trips out, for a total of 1,467 car trips in an hour. That total was divided by 204, since the store was 204,000 s.f. The result was 7.l9 trips per thousand square feet. That means the store experienced approximately 733 cars going in and out in one evening hour. The average for all 5 superstores studied was 5.5 peak evening car trips per 1,000 s.f. of store. A typical 213,210 s.f. store studied would generate 1,172 car trips in one hour’s time, or roughly 586 cars. Researchers then compared that to the land use code 813 for a free standing discount store averaging 161,000 s.f., which was 3.87 trips per 1,000 s.f. of store. Using the old formula for a ‘smaller’ superstore when analyzing a store larger than 200,000 s.f. would dramatically understate the true traffic count. “Today’s free-standing discount superstore with sizes greater than 200,000 s.f. have significantly higher trip generation rates that the stores used to supply data for the ITE land use code 813,” the ITE Journal concludes. This study suggests that traffic engineers should use the new, higher trip rates produced in this report when presenting data for superstores like Wal-Marts in excess of 200,000 s.f. The researchers also suggested that the ITE should add a new land use code for “large free-standing discount superstores greater than 200,000 s.f.” The rate for a ‘shopping center’ is definitely not correct for these new, larger supercenters. A superstore at 200,000 s.f. measured by the “old” land use code 813 for a discount superstore, would be 774 car trips in the evening peak hour, whereas using the new land use code for superstores over 200,000 s.f. would yield 1,100 car trips in the peak evening hour---or 42% higher traffic volume.

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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, May 21 | 0 comments | Permalink

Tempe, AZ. Wal-Mart Hopes To Move In Without A Single Vote

One Wal-Mart is one more than enough for the residents of Tempe, Arizona. The announcement that Wal-Mart wants to build a second superstore in this community of roughly 165,000 people “has unleashed an outpouring of public dissent,” according to the Arizona Republic newspaper. In late April, the retailer proposed moving into an existing shopping center, including a Mervyn’s department store, along Rural Road and Southern Avenue. Many residents in the area don’t care for the plan at all. “We are just against Wal-Mart moving into our area because it’s such a high-impact business,” said one member of the group Save Tempe. “We’re going to be looking for support from our representatives because they’ve got to help us on this matter if they want to stay in office.” City officials claim there is little they can do because the parcel is already zoned commercial. Tempe’s community development director told the newspaper, “We have to treat it the same as if it were a JCPenney or a Kohl’s that wanted to come in.” The city says Wal-Mart will not be significantly changing the size of the building, and so does not even need a special permit. They claim Wal-Mart only plans to make interior changes to the Mervyn’s building-—like a new layout and floor, etc. Wal-Mart will take over Mervyn’s lease, which runs out in May of 2008. But neighbors know a Wal-Mart supercenter will bring significant changes to the surrounding community, with a much higher volume of daily traffic. This project goes against the city’s land use goals of revitalizing neighborhoods, residents charge. “Wal-Mart doesn’t really reflect the type of development we’ve been seeing,” explained Chris Rogers, a member of Save Tempe. “If downtown is the mind of Tempe, central Tempe is the heart and soul, so we need more development that reflects the upward trend that brings the neighborhoods up, rather than down.” The group Save Tempe was formed to oppose the Wal-Mart project, and “create development that supports our neighborhoods.” The group explained its position in the following memo to Sprawl-Busters: “Wal-Mart purchased, the Mervyn’s property, the 99 Cents Only property and the adjacent parking lot at Rural Road and Southern Avenue from Scottsdale-based Diversified Partners in April 2007. Mervyn’s was in the process of negotiating renewal of their lease when the sale occurred; their lease will expire in May 2008. Mervyn’s is searching for a new Central Tempe location. Wal-Mart plans on opening a supercenter by fall 2008. Because Wal-Mart is planning to move into an existing building, they will not have to go through an entitlement process with the City of Tempe (no traffic analysis, no development review, no public hearing, etc.). The standard size of the Mervyn’s store is 86,000 sf. The standard size of a typical Wal-Mart Supercenter is 100,000-200,000 sf. Wal-Mart will likely only have to apply for sign-package and liquor license approval. A growing opposition movement is underway as neighborhood association leaders and area residents have organized to help Save Tempe neighborhoods. Councilmembers have been flooded with email messages and phone calls expressing opposition to Wal-Mart at Rural and Southern, which is one of the busiest in the city. In 2006 there were ninety accidents reported at this intersection; this represents an 11% increase over the prior year. Additionally, Rural and Southern accounts for 1.3% of all traffic accidents in the City of Tempe. The average Wal-Mart Supercenter gets 18 commercial deliveries – in large semi-trailer trucks – per day, in stark comparison to the current Mervyn’s that receives just about three commercial deliveries per week. The addition of a 24-7 Wal-Mart will overload our neighborhoods with cut-through traffic requiring additional traffic calming measures that Tempe taxpayers will have to foot the bill for. The proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter will abut some of the City of Tempe’s oldest neighborhoods. After several years of transition and fighting negligent rental property owners and their tenants, many residents have made significant upgrades to these older homes – increasing their property values in sync with the Valley’s housing boom. The evidence can be seen first-hand as you drive through Tempe Gardens, Palmcroft, Brentwood-Cavalier, and Superstition Neighborhood Association streets.