Option for Wal-Mart?

Developer Harlan Douglass has purchased land in Spokane County that neighbors speculate could become an alternative site for a South Hill Wal-Mart Supercenter.

In a sale that was finalized Friday, Douglass bought nearly eight acres at 57th Avenue and Palouse Highway from Covenant Christian Church for $2.65 million, confirmed the Rev. Michael Rice-Sauer, who is known as Redhawk.

The land includes two parcels that, when combined, are almost the exact size as property that Douglass owns on 44th Avenue and Regal Street. Douglass plans to lease that property to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for a supercenter. However, residents have organized and will likely appeal that project.

The newly purchased land is just outside Spokane city limits – about a mile from the other site – and shares a block with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. .

Cheryl Gwinn, a member of Association for Sensible Transportation, a citizens group opposing Wal-Mart, is concerned that the site could become an alternate location for the supercenter if citizen appeals on the city location drag on for too long.

“I think most people are just so sick of it and feel so powerless. They don’t think they’re going to have a say in anything. I think they just feel there are done deals and there’s nothing they can do to change anything,” Gwinn said.

Redhawk said Douglass offered the church more than its original $2.45 million asking price, with a million dollars of earnest money and no contingencies. The money will go toward building a church with a youth performance arts center, he said. The congregation will keep its steeple, but Redhawk said he isn’t sure what the future plans are for the rest of the property, adding, “That’s my neighborhood, too, and anybody’s guess is as good as mine.”

Douglass declined to comment on any possible development plans.

Jennifer Holder, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said she hadn’t heard anything about the Palouse Highway property, adding, “Our real estate guys haven’t even been out to look at anything else in Spokane.”

Company engineers are currently working with the state Department of Ecology and Department of Natural Resources on storm water plans for the 44th Avenue and Regal Street site. Additionally, a traffic study is under way for that location, she said, and the company hopes to apply for a building permit in the near future.

“I just talked to the engineers and they are moving forward,” Holder said.

The Regal Street property in Spokane hasn’t been an easy sell for the retailer. Neighbors voiced outrage during an initial traffic scoping meeting, citing concerns about the impact of hundreds of additional cars on already congested roads and on the safety of students attending nearby Adams Elementary and Ferris High schools.

Additionally, the property has environmental baggage.

A wetland was illegally filled sometime in the past year, by what the city later admitted was a combination of city and developer activity. In March, after the Wal-Mart project was announced, a neighbor, Ann Morlin, filed a code enforcement complaint, asking the city to investigate the incident and restore the wetland.

A grading permit is on file with Spokane County for the Palouse Highway property and is listed under Whipple Consulting Engineers. The company is owned by Todd Whipple, formerly of CLC Associates, which has worked with Wal-Mart on a half-dozen projects in Spokane, Pullman and Coeur d’Alene in the past decade.

While Wal-Mart may not actively be seeking a backup site, the company has a history of locating outside cities and counties where it encounters significant opposition. The scenario creates something of a no-win situation for municipal officials. If they listen to the concerns of citizen groups and deny approval for Wal-Mart to build, the retailer can take its business – and hundreds of thousands of local sales tax dollars – to a nearby jurisdiction. In Punta Gorda, Fla., the company abandoned efforts to expand a store, sold the site and moved outside city limits to build a new supercenter, a store that sells general merchandise but also carries groceries.

In Illinois, 18 months after the Chicago City Council shot down a zoning change for a Wal-Mart store, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer opened a 141,000-square-foot store one block outside city limits, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Officials in neighboring Evergreen Park, where the new store opened earlier this year, estimated that Wal-Mart would pay about $1 million in property and sales taxes the first year. Chicago Alderman Howard Brookins Jr. lamented the tax bleed: “I always tell people I’m not for Wal-Mart, but I am for that project coming into the city and to my ward. We can’t beat them.”