No council support for new Wal-Mart store in Cedar Rapids, mayor says

CEDAR RAPIDS - Fights over issues in Cedar Rapids require someone on the city council to be for something and someone to be against it, Mayor Ron Corbett said on Monday.

Corbett said he could not imagine a fight over Wal-Mart's new proposal to build a 156,159-square-foot store at Mount Vernon Road SE and East Post Road SE, because he didn't know of any of the nine council members who supported the plan or wanted to fight for it.

'Under the current proposal, I wouldn't vote for it, and I don't think there is much support for it on the council or in the community,” Corbett said.

Both the mayor and council member Scott Olson said they attended a national shopping center conference earlier this year, during which they said they heard a presentation from Wal-Mart executives about the company's prototypes for smaller, urban stores of 19,000 and 30,000 square feet in size.

Both Corbett and Olson said that Wal-Mart representatives were in the city this summer to talk about plans for a new store, and at that time, individual council members expressed their reservations about the size of the proposed store at the Mount Vernon Road SE site and suggested the company present some other options, they said.

'That didn't happen,” Olson said. 'They're coming in with the big store. ... But we've never pressed them to look at options. Would they consider a smaller prototype store?”

Corbett said he was surprised last week to see that Wal-Mart had submitted a preliminary site plan to the city to build the big store.

The company's site plan, submitted to the city by Manhard Consulting Ltd. of Vernon Hills, Ill., shows the proposed store would sit on a 24-acre site with a gas station along the south side of Mount Vernon Road SE. South of the gas station is a parking lot of 631 parking spaces in front of the 156,159-square-foot store. The entrance into the development would be at East Post Road SE.

Olson, a Realtor with Skogman Commercial, said national chain retailers like Wal-Mart conduct 'sophisticated studies” on demographics and retail demand, and he said Wal-Mart's experts apparently have concluded that a Wal-Mart store on Mount Vernon Road SE would not harm the market served by Wal-Mart's store at Highway 13 and Highway 151 in Marion.

Corbett said development proposals like Wal-Mart's take up city staff time and resources, and he said one approach would be to block the Wal-Mart development request now and not allow it to continue through the city's development process. The development requires some zoning modifications and the annexation of a small piece of land, the mayor said.

However, the mayor said Wal-Mart also has the right to due process and to 'the same courtesy to tell their side of the story” as other developers.

'It's really up to them if they want to spend the time and resources,” he said.

Local builder and developer Jim Sattler, who is among the owners of the property at the proposed Walmart store site, said Walmart representatives have been talking to him off and on for two to three years about the Mount Vernon Road SE site for a new store.

Sattler said it was 'kind of a shame” that some city leaders appeared to be opposed to the Walmart project even as it was beginning to take shape.

'That's a little disappointing when I know our city is anxious for retail expansion as well as for development period,” he said.

Joe Mailander, the city's development services program manager, said Wal-Mart representatives have scheduled a meeting with City Manager Jeff Pomeranz and other city officials for later this month.

Mailander said the City Council first will need to address the request to annex a north-south section of property on the west side of the development site from unincorporated Linn County into the city. The annexation question wouldn't come to the council for a couple of months, he said. He said the council would address zoning questions and then the particulars of the site plan after that.

Mailander said Wal-Mart is used to initial resistance to some of its store proposals.

Wal-Mart has a store in northeast Cedar Rapids, one in southwest Cedar Rapids and the store on the east side of Marion. It also operates a Sam's Club store next to the Wal-Mart in northeast Cedar Rapids.