Wal-Mart plans West Plains store
The world’s largest retailer plans to build an $11.5 million supercenter on 19 acres at the northeast corner of Hayford Road and U.S. Highway 2, in the West Plains area.
The 194,000-square-foot Wal-Mart brings the potential for hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual sales tax revenue, but that money won’t benefit tiny Airway Heights. The proposed Wal-Mart’s parking lot falls about 100 feet west of Airway Heights’ city limits, inside Spokane County.
“It’s frustrating. It’s a substantial amount of money,” said Chuck Freeman, Airway Heights city manager.
The city has been recruiting businesses and has succeeded in building sales-tax revenue for two straight years, he said.
A study last year found that 41 percent of military personnel surveyed said they wanted a Wal-Mart store in the area. Wal-Mart’s name has also been floated in conjunction with shopping complexes proposed in that area by the Spokane Tribe of Indians and the Kalispell Tribe.
Although many in the community want the supercenter, Freeman isn’t sure what the impact to local business will be. Plans show the supercenter is similar to Wal-Mart’s north Spokane store and will include a grocery department, hair salon, pharmacy, vision center and restaurant space. While the local Yoke’s Foods may lose customers, many other businesses don’t compete with those services, Freeman said, adding, “The opinion with staff is that we may lose a little or we may lose nothing.”
Spokane County planning department files show the store will be built on land owned by Granite Investments LLC, which includes Dick Vandervert of Vandervert Construction. BCRA, a Tacoma, Wash.-based architectural firm, applied for the building permit and planning consultant CLC Associates is also providing services.
Wal-Mart already has stores in Spokane, Spokane Valley and Post Falls and is seeking approval from the city of Spokane to build a supercenter at 44th Avenue and Regal Street in south Spokane. Wal-Mart announced earlier this year that it plans to open more than 1,500 U.S. stores in the next few years. The company already operates about 3,200 stores and supercenters across the U.S., not including its Sam’s Clubs and Neighborhood Markets.
Ron Hand, development assistance coordinator for Spokane County, said a traffic and environmental study were done on the site four years ago when Granite Investments went through the approval process to build a shopping center with a grocery store and retail buildings.
The Department of Transportation recently reviewed the old traffic study and found that the supercenter didn’t change the initial traffic projections because the retail square footage was roughly the same, Hand said.
The developer will be asked to do some mitigations at the intersection and improvements to Hayford Road, Hand said, adding “The roads will be built out according to whatever the engineers have required.”
Hand said that the county has reviewed the plans and sent the comments back to the developer for revision.