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Wal-Mart defends supercenter site
By TERESA BURNEY, Times Staff Writer SPRING HILL -- Wal-Mart officials say they are close to getting the permits they need to build a supercenter store on U.S. 19 at Osowaw Boulevard. The store's vocal opponents say Wal-Mart shouldn't be so cocky. The supercenter has been controversial since Wal-Mart announced its plans last spring. Opponents formed an organization called CAUSE -- the Coalition for Anti-Urban Sprawl Effort -- and called news conferences to protest the store's construction. They bemoaned the loss of the woodlands, which are close to the Weekiwachee Preserve's bear habitat, and evoked images of two bear cubs that were recently killed by a car near the site. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart hired attorneys and stayed characteristically quiet as the company worked through the permitting process. This week, as Wal-Mart officials became confident that they were finally close to coming up with a development agreement with Hernando County, they decided to talk to the news media and tell their side. First, said Marilyn Healy, a local lawyer hired by Wal-Mart, the land already was zoned for commercial use when the company agreed to buy it. And, far from being a pristine piece of environmentally sensitive property, she said, it was once used as a sewage effluent spray field. Healy said Wal-Mart has jumped through every hoop the county has put before it, including a new law that requires large retail stores to have added architectural detail and a landscaping ordinance that requires bigger trees and more island space for plants in the parking lot. "It's been a pretty tedious process," said Healy, because this was the first development to come in under the two new regulations, and county officials spent a lot of time wrangling with Wal-Mart over interpretation. In the end, this store will have more open space than other stores before it, she said. "We were only required to reserve 15 percent for open space (under the old county ordinance). Now we are reserving 34 percent," she said. "I think it's going to be a very good result for Hernando County. For a large retail project, it's going to look significantly different from the Lowe's or the Home Depots." As for traffic concerns, Healy said the company has agreed to keep trucks off Osowaw Boulevard and is making some off-site improvements to roads, including realigning the road near Denny's restaurant, reconfiguring that intersection to make it flow into the frontage road system. The supercenter would employ about 500 people, about twice what the current Wal-Mart on U.S. 19 employs, said Daphne Davis Moore, Wal-Mart's community affairs manager for the Southeast. The jobs pay more than the minimum wage and include benefits such as health insurance, 401(k) retirement plans and profit sharing. The new store is also expected to bring in more than twice the sales tax dollars and pay more than twice the property taxes the existing store does. She said the existing store would stay open until the evening before the supercenter opens. The company hopes to have the new store open by early 2003. It would take about 10 months to build. Wal-Mart is replacing its regular stores with supercenters, which include groceries and other services, throughout the country. In the past year, the company announced plans to build 50 new regular Wal-Mart stores and 180 to 185 supercenters. Between 110 and 115 of the supercenters will be expansions of existing Wal-Marts or replace existing stores, Davis Moore said. In addition to the supercenter on U.S. 19, the company recently started construction on another supercenter in Brooksville at U.S. 41 and Wiscon Road. When that store is completed in October or November, the county will have three supercenters for its population of about 131,000. Davis Moore said the company is confident the demand exists. Supercenters, since they include groceries, can be located closer to each other than a typical store because people tend to buy groceries more often and seek convenience, she said. As far as residents' complaints go, Davis Moore said the company has been willing to listen to people with "very legitimate concerns . . . and we are willing to sit down and talk and work out as best we can those concerns. At the same time, there are people who may not have legitimate concerns." Hernando County officials have not signed off on Wal-Mart's plans, said Grant Tolbert, the county's development services director. For instance, a tree-removal plan has not been agreed upon, and the county will not give its final okay for the project until it has permits in hand from the Florida Department of Transportation and the Southwest Florida Water Management District. "They are getting close," Tolbert said. "There are some issues that are still out there, but they have pretty much accommodated everything we asked them to do." Opponent Arline Erdrich of CAUSE is not so sure Wal-Mart is that close to approval. She wants to see a new traffic study of the area, a wildlife survey, a sinkhole study and evidence that there are no archaeological sites on the land. "We are going to hold their feet to the fire," Erdrich said. "We are doing our research, and we are doing it thoroughly, and we are not going to let things go by. We are going to make the county hold them accountable for what they need to do." In the meantime, CAUSE is looking for support from other organizations. It planned to have a meeting with representatives from 21 other groups, including the Kiwanis, Rotary, the Spring Hill Civic Association, the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, on Thursday evening. "Our intent is to have a united front to show that it's not just a bunch of what people refer to as tree huggers -- that it is a broad cross section of the community that is interested and concerned," Erdrich said. -- Teresa Burney covers business and development in Hernando County and can be reached at 848-1434. Send e-mail to burney@sptimes.com.
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