On Tuesday April 1, the Hadley Planning Board accepted a letter from the developer of the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter asking that the site plan hearing for the project be closed. The board then closed the hearing without voting on the proposal. When asked by the board why the plans were being withdrawn, the developer’s representative said, “Pyramid and Wal-Mart have terminated their relationship.” Plans for the Supercenter said that Pyramid was to develop the site, install drainage and parking, and then turn it over to Wal-Mart. Pyramid has advised residents that it intends to continue developing the site and find new tenants.
Wal-Mart has dropped its plans to build a supercenter in Hadley, Massachusetts. The company’s decision ends three years of efforts to build a 212,000-square foot store at the Hampshire Mall.
Representatives for the Pyramid Companies, which is developing the site on which the supercenter was to be built, have notified residents and local officials that Wal-Mart is no longer a prospective tenant. However, Pyramid says it will continue to develop the site and seek new tenants to take Wal-Mart’s place. Wal-Mart continues to operate a regular-sized discount store at the Mountain Farms Mall less than 300 yards away.
A brief press release is available. A portion of the site plan is seen below.
Wal-Mart’s decision to abandon the supercenter plan means that a smaller scale development could be built that protects the nearby Norwottuck Rail Trail and surrounding wetlands. The supercenter would have been the largest single structure in Hadley, with loading docks within 250-300 feet of the Rail Trail.
In 2007, Wal-Mart announced it was cutting back by about one-third the number of some 270 new supercenter openings nationwide this year. Pyramid representatives said the current economic downturn was a factor in Wal-Mart’s decision, as well as the fact that the Hadley location had become a “difficult” site on which to build a supercenter.
On October 16, the Hadley Planning Board decided to wait another month before voting on whether or not to approve the subdivision plans that would exempt the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter from Hadley’s retail building size limit of 75,000 square feet. (The Supercenter would be 212,000 square feet). The next scheduled date for the subdivision vote is November 20th.
Also on October 16, the Board accepted Wal-Mart’s request to postpone for a third time the continuation of the Supercenter site plan hearing, from November 20, 2007 to January 15, 2008. The hearing began in August 2005, and three different site plan options were presented in June 2006. The Board asked Wal-Mart not to return until a single plan could be presented.
The Hadley Planning Board is scheduled to hold a public hearing Oct 16 at 7:30 PM on a new subdivision plan that will allow the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter at Hampshire Mall to proceed. If approved by the Planning Board, the subdivision plan will give Wal-Mart eight years of grandfathering protection from Hadley’s limit of 75,000 square feet on new retail buildings. Town Meeting passed that limit by an overwhelming 3 to 1 margin in May 2006. Wal-Mart’s proposed Supercenter is 212,000 square feet, plus a 12-acre parking lot. The meeting will take place on the second floor of the Hadley Senior Center at 46 Middle Street.
The continuation of the Wal-Mart Supercenter site plan hearing that was set to resume on September 4 is being postponed yet again. A representative for the developer will reportedly appear before the Planning Board on September 4 to set (another) new date.
This brief video shows the expansion of Wal-Mart stores in the United States since 1964:
In the wake of the state’s rejection of the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Wal-Mart Supercenter, the Hadley Planning Board has asked the developer not to return until a single site plan can be presented. (In March 2007, the developer showed the board three new alternatives, each different from the original August 2005 site plan.) The developer has tentatively agreed to resume their hearing in September 2007, more than two years after filing their original plans.
Massachusetts’ new greenhouse gas policy may affect proposed commercial development in Hadley. New projects must comply if they “generate 3,000 or more new vehicle trips per day for office projects; 6,000 or more trips per day for mixed use projects that are 25% office space; or 10,000 trips per day for other projects.”
The environmental impact reports filed for the three proposed big box stores in Hadley show that the Wal-Mart Supercenter will generate 9,434 trips per day at peak; the Home Depot project will generate 12,858 trips at peak; and the Lowe’s project will generate 8,676 trips during peak (Saturday middays). This represents a total increase of 30,968 new trips on Saturdays — more than double the existing 28,000 trips. Developers’ environmental reports show the cumulative air pollution increase for ozone ingredients will be 23.2% for nitrogen oxide and 25.6% for volatile organic compounds.
State regulators, acknowledging the cumulative impacts of permitting these three large projects, are requiring the developers to address the traffic impacts together and work out an agreement in which whatever project is built first must built the majority of traffic “mitigation” improvements (i.e., wider traffic lanes, new signals, etc.) for all three developments.
The new policy requires developers to show increases in six pollutants cited by the Kyoto Protocol: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N20), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6). The policy will be available for public comment July 1.
Business wires report that Wal-Mart will reduce the number of new supercenters to be opened this year by nearly 30 percent, or roughly 75 stores. The announcement was made Friday during Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas. The retailer, which had 2,307 U.S. supercenters at the end of April 2007, said it now expects to open 190 to 200 supercenters this fiscal year, down from its previous plan of 265 to 270. Pop singer Jennifer Lopez provided musical accompaniment to the news of the cutbacks.
The pullback, the second in six months, may be the biggest in Wal-Mart’s 45-year history, and suggests that the company is reaching a turning point. Wal-Mart’s stock price rose 4% on the news, suggesting that even investors believe Wal-Mart may now be too big for its own good. Wal-Mart is not revealing whether or not the proposed Hadley Supercenter is one of the 75 stores to be cut.
A recent study (see page 4) shows Wal-Mart gives only about one-fourth as much to charity as locally owned businesses do–and less than half as much as Target gives, as a percentage of sales. The study also finds that only 14 cents of every dollar spent at a big box retail store actually stays in the state where the store is located. The other 86 cents goes to Bentonville (Wal-Mart)… Atlanta (Home Depot)… Mooresville, NC (Lowe’s)… and so on.