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Wal-Mart ends its appeals on Gandy

CARRIE JOHNSON, MARK ALBRIGHT.

St. Petersburg Times. St. Petersburg, Fla.: Aug 12, 2005. pg. 1.A

The retail giant decides to stop fighting to build a supercenter on the site, the chain's latest loss in the area.

Alarmed that Wal-Mart wanted to build a supercenter on Gandy Boulevard, area residents asked a lawyer for help.

"He told us we had maybe a 10 percent chance of success," said Rob Kappes, president of the Sterling Manor Homeowners Association in Brighton Bay.

The neighbors persisted. And Thursday, less than two weeks before a scheduled showdown before City Council, the megastore giant withdrew its appeal, ending a bid to build a 150,000-square-foot supercenter on Gandy Boulevard, just east of Fourth Street.

It was a victory that's becoming common in the Tampa Bay area as more homeowners defy Wal-Mart, once considered nearly unstoppable.

In April, residents successfully fought expansion of a Wal-Mart in the Tyrone area of west St. Petersburg. Plans for a supercenter in Crystal River have been thwarted for more than a year after neighborhood associations and environmentalists raised questions over whether the city could legally annex the property slated for development.

And in Tarpon Springs, residents sued their city after it approved a Wal-Mart in January.

"It shows that you shouldn't assume you don't have a chance because they're the biggest corporation in the world," Kappes said.

In St. Petersburg, the supercenter was planned for 27 acres of vacant land at 10589 Gandy Blvd. NE. The proposal included a grocery store, garden center and liquor store.

The corporation received its first setback in June when the city's Environmental Development Commission rejected the site plan. Wal-Mart appealed the ruling to the City Council but had a tough road. To overturn the EDC's rejection, they needed a supermajority of council members - six out of eight. The hearing was scheduled for Aug. 23.

Eric Brewer, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said traffic concerns led the company to withdraw its plans for the Gandy Boulevard site. The company asked the Florida Department of Transportation for permission to put the main entrance to the store on Gandy Boulevard, but the request was denied.

So the company was forced to put the entrance on Brighton Bay Boulevard, which residents said was unfit for the congestion it would bring.

"What it came down to was not being able to get the traffic access off of Gandy Boulevard," Brewer said. "We're disappointed it didn't work out."

Brewer said it was unlikely Wal-Mart would try again on that site. "I think we need to step back and look at our overall strategy in the Tampa Bay area," he said.

Residents of Brighton Bay, where the average cost of a home was around $300,000 in 2003, were overjoyed by the news Thursday. They had been going door to door for the past two weeks, drumming up support for their cause.

"We were prepared to go 10 more rounds if we had to because we had it in black and white that the project just wasn't right for that site," said resident Doug Davidson.

From the start, the neighbors mobilized a well-funded and highly organized effort to block the development. They began to strategize months before the EDC meeting and raised more than $5,000 to fund their effort. Their group, Concerned Citizens for Gandy Boulevard, traded information through e-mail notices and set up a Web site.

They also hired a lawyer and a traffic consultant.

"It wasn't about emotion," Davidson said. "It was never about good guys or bad guys. We fought them with the facts."

Wal-Mart has been taking hits from all directions lately.

A grand jury is investigating former vice chairman Tom Coughlin's forced early retirement in May that ignited two whistle-blower lawsuits. This week an appeals court heard Wal-Mart's defense in a multibillion-dollar sexual discrimination class-action suit. Soaring gas prices put a lid on the chain's sales growth, and the working- class retailer's latest attempt to woo more upscale customers has yet to gain traction.

As Wal-Mart marches deeper into urban markets, the chain has also encountered far more organized opposition. The corporation's most vocal opponents - antisprawl, antipoverty and environmental groups - have joined forces with the nation's two biggest retail clerks unions. Together, they have tried to portray Wal-Mart as the poster child for most of the challenges facing the future of American capitalism.

Despite the setbacks, however, Wal-Mart has yet to miss its aggressive store growth target of opening more than 200 supercenters every year. In the Tampa Bay area, the chain plans to increase its collection of supercenters by a third over the next three years.

And north St. Petersburg is a likely target, said Rick Smith, director of Wal-Mart Alliance for Reform Now, a Tampa-based organization that joined the fight to oppose the Gandy supercenter.

The company's Pinellas Park store was the highest performing Wal- Mart in the country in 2004, churning out almost $200-million in sales. That's more than twice the $90-million of the average supercenter. Wal-Mart will likely try to build other stores in the area to relieve the pressure.

"It isn't over," Smith said. "They'll be back. Whatever happens, we've got to keep going."

Times staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Carrie Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@sptimes.com or (727) 892- 2273.

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