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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Wal-Mart Files Plan For North Site Chooses 40-Acre Lot On Newport Highway

Alison Boggs Staff Writer

Wal-Mart has staked out territory for a second Spokane site, ending months of rumors about the giant discounter’s interest in the North Side.

The nation’s largest retailer submitted a site plan to Spokane County’s Division of Building and Planning for a 39.89-acre lot on Newport Highway, northwest of the intersection with Nevada.

But the owner of the Wal-Mart site said no sale has been finalized. Negotiations are ongoing, said Dave Nelson, of Pente Partnership.

“It’s still contingent on too many things,” Nelson said.

Officials for Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart were not available for comment Wednesday.

Spokane County Senior Planner John Pederson said the retailer’s proposal is already being studied. “We’re in the design review phase,” he said.

The North Side plan joins another already in the works for a Wal-Mart at 15727 E. Broadway in the Spokane Valley, near Sullivan and Interstate 90. Both plans call for 130,000-square-foot stores.

Speculation about Wal-Mart’s possible North Side plans intensified late last year, when Pente Partnership gave Nelson Landscape Service Inc., which occupies about half the Newport Highway acreage, notice that its lease would expire June 15.

Both the Valley and North Side site plans call for retail space in addition to the Wal-Mart stores. On the North Side, the plan provides for an extra 240,000 square feet for five stores ranging in size from 31,000 to 126,000 square feet.

The Valley plan calls for an extra 170,000 square feet, but does not outline how the area would be used.

Wal-Mart’s proposed North Side site could pose zoning problems. Unlike the Valley site, which is already zoned commercial, part of the Newport Highway ground is zoned residential.

“The major issue is the zone change. That’s a lot of B-3,” Pederson said, indicating the commercial zone classification Wal-Mart is seeking.

Duane Alton, owner of Alton’s Tire, recently requested a zone change, from residential to commercial, for eight acres just south of Wal-Mart’s site. Alton wants to build an automotive parts and service store and two other stores, totalling 70,000 square feet of retail space.

Forty-two neighbors in subdivisions to the west signed petitions and 100 wrote letters disapproving of the zone change for reasons including traffic, noise, devaluation of homes and increased accidents on an already accident-prone highway.

Some of the neighbors opposed to Alton’s development said they’d also contest the proposed Wal-Mart.

“Wal-Mart will directly affect us,” said Claudia Couch, who lives in College Place Addition. “We don’t need this kind of progress in our own backyards.”

Spokane County Hearing Examiner Michael Dempsey is expected to make a decision on Alton Tire’s request by next week.

, DataTimes