Wal-Mart fights town ban with divide-and-conquer

business

Wal-Mart fights town ban with divide-and-conquer

Calvert Co.'s Dunkirk size restrictions met by splitting store in two

Associated Press

Originally published March 20, 2005

DUNKIRK - The fight last summer followed a similar plot line to other "big box" battles across the country: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. proposes a huge retail store, community groups rally against it and local lawmakers pass restrictive zoning laws designed to keep the sprawling store out of town.

But the story of Wal-Mart's plans to build in this Southern Maryland town has an unusual sequel. Faced with restrictions that would block plans for a 145,000-square-foot store, Wal-Mart came up with a way to circumvent the new rules - splitting the store in two.

The company is proposing to build two Wal-Marts, standing next to each other but not connected, along four-lane Route 4. One would house Wal-Mart's retail section, the other a garden center. They would share a parking lot. And both would be smaller than the 75,000-square- foot limit Calvert County passed last year.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company says this is the first time it has suggested splitting stores to get around restrictive zoning ordinances.

The company has to be adaptable as it meets resistance from local communities, said Wal-Mart spokesman Mia Masten. Its Dunkirk proposal is legal and meets what company officials believe is demand from potential customers, she said.

"We have to be flexible with what we are given, so we modified our plan," Masten said. "We abided by the rules of the ordinance."

Local residents who opposed the original store, however, were aghast when they discovered at a January meeting of the county planning board that Wal-Mart and its developer still planned to build in Dunkirk.

"We thought we had beaten the beast, but apparently not," said Robin Gottlieb of the organization Calvert Neighbors for Sensible Growth. "If they come in saying, 'We are going to do what we want whether you like it or not,' it's disrespectful of the community's wishes and arrogant."

Bordered by the Chesapeake Bay and Patuxent River, Calvert County was once home mostly to farmers and watermen, far enough from Washington to be relatively untouched by urban life. But as the capital's suburbs crept farther out, Calvert's population began to boom.

Much of that growth has centered on Dunkirk, a small town in the northern part of the county. Developments of large homes with expansive yards sprout off Route 4. Commuters heading to and from Washington crowd the road during rush hour.

That growth convinced Wal-Mart that Calvert was a ripe market, Masten said. Not only did the company propose the store in Dunkirk, but it also planned to expand its store in nearby Prince Frederick to a 187,000-square-foot Supercenter.

However, many in the county feared that two big Wal-Marts would drive local shops out of business and bring more unwanted traffic to the region. Calvert Neighbors for Sensible Growth collected hundreds of signatures on a petition urging the county to toughen zoning laws to combat big-box stores.

Calvert officials responded by installing size limits of 125,000 square feet in the county seat, Prince Frederick, and 75,000 square feet in smaller town centers, including Dunkirk. Gottlieb believed the issue was finished.

But Wal-Mart later submitted a proposal to build a 74,998- square-foot store in Dunkirk with a 22,689-square-foot garden center next door. Each would have a separate entrance, its own checkout lines, and different utilities. Both, however, would bear the Wal-Mart name.

Even though local officials tried to block Wal-Mart from building in Dunkirk, Masten said the company's market research convinced it that people in the region want a store.

"Customers were excited about having a Wal-Mart in Dunkirk," she said. "Customers should decide where they shop, as opposed to officials."

Wal-Mart's plan to split the stores was put on hold by the planning commission, according to its chairman, John R. Ward, while the Calvert Board of Commissioners decides whether the store-size ordinance needs to be changed.

The company's proposal may be legal, Ward said, but Wal-Mart is ignoring the message planners tried to send when the size restrictions were passed last year.

"It violates the intent of the regulation," he said.

Calvert Neighbors for Sensible Growth has urged county planners to study a zoning law written by the Idaho town of Hailey to keep big-box stores from building multiple stores on one site.

Hailey, a community of about 7,000 people near a big ski resort, changed its laws after its planning director, Kathy Grotto, said she was contacted by a representative for Home Depot Inc. The Atlanta-based company inquired whether it could meet the town's 36,000-square-foot cap by building a store with an adjacent greenhouse or lumberyard, she said.

Worried that their zoning laws might not cover store-splitting, town leaders limited retailers or wholesale businesses to a total of 36,000 square feet if the buildings are within 800 feet of each other. Grotto said Home Depot never called back after the law was passed.

"We think it is loophole-free," she said.

Gottlieb said Wal-Mart's persistence against other attempts to block its stores nationwide, such as the referendum the company forced last year in Inglewood, Calif., after the City Council rejected a store, has convinced her that the company will look for other creative ways around any changes that Calvert might impose. She also fears the store may file a lawsuit.

But she won't easily give up.

"We're not looking at this as a small challenge. It is huge to take them on," she said. "But the more we take them on and win, the more incentive it will be for other communities to try."

Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun

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