In return for asking residents to share a road, Wal-Mart vows to build a smaller supercenter.
By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published October 17, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - Wal-Mart is moving steadily forward with plans to build a supercenter on 27 vacant acres north of Gandy Boulevard, kitty-corner from the Derby Lane dog track.
The neighbors still don't like it but at this point seem resigned to negotiating for better roads or a prettier store.
Brighton Bay, a cluster of apartment, townhome and single-family developments, abuts the west end of the vacant site. Last week, a standing-room-only crowd of those neighbors got an update from Wal-Mart representatives and consultants. And Wal-Mart got an earful.
"Two-thirds of my community don't want you here," Wyngate Homeowners Association president Don Zeigler said.
The housing development would share Brighton Bay Boulevard with Wal-Mart customers. Currently, 2,000 residents use that road. Wal-Mart might add 8,000 cars a day, and the road would have to be widened.
In return for asking residents to share the boulevard, Wal-Mart vows to build a slimmer supercenter. Instead of 210,000 square feet, the new store might have 150,000.
The store has not submitted a site plan to the city but probably will soon, said spokesman Glen Wilkins. He said he did not know when the project might break ground.
St. Petersburg Kennel Club owns the land, which was once home of a 30-unit building of undetermined use, said Peter Sutch, Wal-Mart's engineering consultant. Wal-Mart has wanted to buy and develop it for about two years.
Residents met on April 1 to mobilize against the development. Among them were representatives of the 119 homes in Sterling Manor, 150 townhomes in Wyngate, and a total of 763 apartments in the Coves and the Verandahs. They complained to the city, circulated fliers and updated the media with e-mails.
Feelings appear to have changed little.
Zeigler, the Wyngate homeowners president, suggested that the store build its own access road and leave Brighton Bay Boulevard alone.
Sutch, the consultant, said other ideas didn't work out. On paper, they tried out a design with a front entrance, which had faced west, flipped around so that it faced Tampa Bay. That plan failed. The Bird Corp., owners of the twin 11-story Mangrove Cay condominiums, yet to be built, would not consent to share a road.
Then the state Department of Transportation would not allow a traffic signal on the east end of the site at San Martin, saying the request deviated too much from its guidelines for access roads.
Wal-Mart also tried to get a traffic signal that would allow eastbound drivers to turn left from Gandy directly into the Wal-Mart and exit the store in either direction.
The DOT turned that traffic signal down because both the signal and road would lie too close to the existing Brighton Bay signal. The loss of a left-turn option into the project hurt planners.
"We would love to get that left-in off of Gandy," Sutch said.
Sutch did not offer specific plans to widen Brighton Bay. He did say that the current plan calls for pushing the store to the eastern end of the acreage that makes up most of the property. There is a second, 2-acre parcel that the store will lease or sell to three retailers or restaurants.
The Wal-Mart plan calls for lining Gandy Boulevard in front of the site with palm trees, one every 25 feet, with more along Brighton Bay Boulevard. Sidewalks would connect all possible footpaths. A small lake on the property, which Sutch said could have started as a borrow pit from a construction project in the late 1950s, would become a retention pond with a fountain. A decorative fence and block wall would surround the pond and help block the view of the store for drivers.
Doug Davidson, incoming president of the master neighborhood association for the four developments, told the store representatives that he has seen roseate spoonbill and wood stork, both endangered species, at the pond.
Wilkins, the Wal-Mart spokesman, said the store's consultants paced the property about six months ago and "there weren't any threatened or endangered species observed."
When residents asked about trucks, Sutch said Wal-Mart delivery drivers would be instructed to use the Gandy entrance only. Other trucks would be free to use either entrance.
The county is changing the zoning for this property and surrounding properties from a type of commercial to commercial parkway. Wal-Mart will ask for no variances, which reduces the bargaining power any opponents might have.
But most agree the roadway will have to change.
"They're going to have to do significant changes to that thoroughfare to make it work for that kind of traffic," said John Bryan, a Brighton Bay resident and a City Council member. Bryan said he anticipates the road to be completely redesigned.
The situation is unique, Bryan said, because on the outskirts of town, this store affects only one community. With Wal-Mart, a direct impact on several communities is the norm.
The city does seem to be shaking off construction dust from one Wal-Mart or another of late. Another supercenter at 3501 34th St. S could be finished by the end of December, Wilkins said. But Wal-Mart's proposed expansion of its store at 3993 Tyrone Blvd. N to a supercenter remains stalled until the city decides whether to annex an adjacent mobile home park.
Sutch estimated that the new store will draw 8,000 cars per day. That could be modest, according to Al Bartolotta, a principal planner with the county. County studies show a traffic count at a Palm Harbor Wal-Mart, 35404 U.S. 19, of 7,275 cars per day.
When asked to assess the store's estimate of 8,000 cars per day, Bartolotta said, "That would kind of beg the question as to a 150,000-square-foot store only generating 8,000 cars a day, because we're showing almost that for an 87,000-square-foot store."
Davidson said neighbors didn't expect to keep the lot vacant forever.
"The members of this community knew it would be developed, more than likely with a commercial project," he said. "But they wanted it more in line with a bookstore, a coffee shop, a restaurant - not a large grocery store discount outlet."
