Last night Wal-Mart spoke ten little words that made hundreds of its opponents

in Cordova, Tennessee very happy: “We’re done. We’re not going to build a store here.” On , Sprawl-Busters reported that things had come to a head in Cordova over a Wal-Mart project that was controversial from start to finish. In the process of pitching a superstore, Wal-Mart ended up having to shrink the plan and make other concesssions to neighbors. On July 8, 2008, Sprawl-Busters noted that Wal-Mart had reduced the size of its proposed superstore, cut down the parking lot, and even offered to pay for road improvements—all to woo support. The story goes back to January of 2008, when Wal-Mart announced that it wanted to build a supercenter in Cordova—a community located on the northeast side of the City of Memphis with a population of roughly 53,000 people. When Wal-Mart’s plans became known in Cordova, a non-profit group, the Gray’s Creek Association (GCA), began putting up signs along a large area of unincorporated land that read: “Gray’s Creek Preservation Area.” The group pushed for smart growth development in Cordova—not Wal-Marts. The area is saturated with Wal-Marts. A total of 14 Wal-Mart stores are located within 20 miles of Cordova, including a Wal-Mart supercenter on Germantown Parkway just minutes away, and a supercenter in Bartlett 4 miles away. In fact, 8 of the 14 Wal-Marts within 20 miles of Cordova are supercenters. There is no conceivable market need for additional Wal-Marts.

The location of Wal-Mart’s latest proposal along Macon and Houston Levee roads, is located on land within the Gray’s Creek Plan, a set of guidelines that Memphis and Shelby County adopted to preserve the area’s property values and to protect it from intense commercial growth. Folks in Cordova had been hoping that Wal-Mart would build their store in the 1.2 million s.f. Mall of Memphis. The giant retailer was under contract to buy 22.5 acres of land there, and had submitted site plans for a 175,000 s.f. store with city and county officials. But last November, Wal-Mart announced that it was pulling out of the Mall of Memphis, citing the company’s national retrenchment of new superstore development. County planners recommended in December of 2007 that the Land Use Control Board (LUCB) toss out Wal-Mart’s plan, because the local roadways cannot handle the influx of projected traffic. As the neighbors got more upset, Wal-Mart began asking the LUCB for more time to work on their plan. The retailer asked the Board to delay its hearing until February, 2008. The Board had already agreed once to give county planners more time to review the project, and for community groups to meet with the Wal-Mart, to urge the company to come up with more of a “creative town center-style design.” County Planners agreed with neighbors that the Board should reject the plan because of worries of how the intersection of two lane roads would handle the cars. Wal-Mart’s reaction to these concerns showed more than a little corporate insensitivity. “We neither agree nor disagree,” said Wal-Mart’s senior manager of public affairs.

“Traffic is a concern with that location for both sides. But it’s not incumbent upon Wal-Mart to fix the county’s traffic problem.” In mid July, the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development (OPD) recommended that the Wal-Mart supercenter in Cordova be rejected. The OPD said the intersection of Macon and Houston Levee would not work—even with the changes in Wal-Mart’s second proposal. The OPD staff wrote: “it remains the opinion of the staff that the existing public facilities (namely roads), cannot absorb the impact of introducing a regional-sized retail facility such as this Wal-Mart Super Center.” The OPD said the project “should be phased or of a smaller scale to permit the construction of public facilities to keep pace with development of the property and surrounding area More mixed uses in smaller buildings or tenant spaces with varied business hours of operation, rather than a dominant single user, would better disperse traffic and lessen demand on the transportation infrastructure.” On July 10th, two days after its staff recommended thumbs down on the project, the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board approved Wal-Mart’s superstore. At the meeting, Chip Saliba, manager of land use controls at the OPD, presented OPD’s arguments against the development. Wal-Mart’s lawyer said that the retailer was prepared to make a $2.4 million investment to relieve the “current bad situation” on the two-lane intersection where the store will be located.

Full Story: http://walmartwatch.com/battlemart/archives/cordova_tn_
wal_mart_superstore_plans_done_and_gone3/