Wal Mart Proposal Continues to Delight, Depress and Divide

County planning officials don't know when Selig Enterprises will submit a traffic study for its on the edge of downtown Athens.

The development has some 200 residential units and a big box store--94,000 square feet big--that's probably a Wal Mart. Both could add substantial traffic to a narrow state road, business US 78/Oconee/Oak Street that already carries an average of 27,470 cars a day, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation.

When Selig does submit the study--showing driveways, curb cuts and other features, as well as traffic estimates--officials said it would go to the county's Staff members there will review it and work with state transportation officials on ways to come up with what planning director Brad Griffeth calls "appropriate numbers and appropriate improvements."

"Generally, there are recommendations that come with infrastructure improvements to make it more palatable," he said. "Say, if the state won't pay for a traffic signal, the developer would have to do that, and might not want to."

Griffeth said the zoning for the property doesn't require Selig to build parking for the anchor store, just for the residential units. He doubts the company would omit parking for Wal Mart, given their interest in parking facilities--some of which are touched on in this Flagpole story--but he said there are other planning concerns.

"There’s still the whole issue that there’s a significant redesign to accommodate the extension of Hickory Street, which wasn’t on their original plan," Griffeth said. "It would enter the site where they show the outdoor pedestrian plaza."

Selig can put in the extension, pursue a modification of the street's location or ask that it be eliminated altogether, Griffeth said. The Mayor and ACC Commission would have to approve the last option.

While the county's planning department and the public works department wait, the issue of a Wal Mart in downtown continues to be front and center in community discussions. Some decry it as a sure-fire way to destroy the success of downtown businesses, while others celebrate it for the jobs and sales tax revenues it would generate.

A week ago, Mayor Nancy Denson silenced public comment during a public meeting, as the attached video shows. The agenda-setting meeting was packed with people opposed to a proposed three-acre development on the edge of downtown along Oconee Street that likely includes a large Wal Mart.

Speaker Melissa Link was trying to explain the value of designating as a tax deferred district, or TAD, the former Armstrong and Dobbs property, where Selig Corporation intends to put a mixed use development anchored by a 90,000 to 100,000 square foot Wal Mart. After the Mayor said Link’s comments weren’t germane, Link snapped back at her and continued talking. Denson then closed public comment.

Many of those at the meeting were members of People for a Better Athens, which recently posted on its website a rendering indicating the height of the proposed Wal Mart as seen from Oconee Street. Selig officials then reconfigured the depiction using other dimensions, and it was circulated around the Internet and to the Athens Banner Herald, as this story shows.

Do you think Athens will benefit from a downtown Wal Mart? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments, please.