Wal-Mart manager: 'We're moving ahead'

Wal-Mart officials are still moving forward with their plans to build a supercenter, but will come up with different store designs to address the concerns outlined by the city/county planning board and residents at last week's meeting, the store manager said.

City/county planning board officials voted to recommend denying Wal-Mart officials' request for a zoning change last week, but voted to approve their request for a special use permit and subdivision designation. The recommendation to deny the zoning request was based on concerns by both board members and property owners around the proposed site, who said the supercenter's design would not be in character with the still-rural area.

Store manager Dave Tolley said this week that Wal-Mart officials want to try and address those concerns by coming up with some different designs that might be more digestible to residents whose property borders the proposed site south of Polson.

"We are going to go back and look at the [current] design and say 'What can we do to accommodate those concerns?'" Tolley said. "We want to do what we can to be good neighbors. The design was one of the concerns that the board had, so right now we are working on addressing that."

The planning board recommended approval of Wal-Mart's request for a subdivision, but both the ruling on the subdivision and zone change are recommendations only, and are not binding, but will be passed on to the Polson city council. Ultimately, the city council will have the final word on whether the proposed site will be zoned for commercial use, or remain residential.

Most importantly, though, the city council will also vote on whether to annex the proposed site into the city. If that vote fails, the other issues are largely moot.

Tolley said he was pleased with the outcome of last week's meeting, even though the board recommended against the zone change.

"The way I look at it, the one issue the planning board had control over - the special-use permit - they said 'yes' to. It didn't go completely the way we wanted it to go, but it definitely wasn't a setback," he said of the zoning ruling.

He said Wal-Mart officials will come up with some new designs, but that he didn't yet have any information on what those new designs might look like, or what characteristics they might have.

Wal-Mart officials have several other options if the Polson city council rejects their request for annexation. They could look at buying other land already zoned for commercial use, or approach the county about other property. They could also expand on their current site, although that seems unlikely given the size of the proposed supercenter - about 156,000 square feet.

Wal-Mart officials have not commented on what other options they are considering should the city council reject their requests, but Tolley did confirm that there is a buy/sell agreement on the current store location, subject to approval of the proposed site. If the supercenter is approved, another Montana retailer is ready to move in to the current store, he said.

Wal-Mart's request for annexation could come before the Polson city council in June, although mayor Randy Ingram noted that much of the timeline is subject to city planner Joyce Weaver's schedule and the public notification process. Ingram said the city will need to hold a public hearing that will need to be advertised at least a couple of weeks in advance to comply with state law.

He said any Wal-Mart related items wouldn't come before the city council until late June at the earliest.

Tolley said he still believes most area residents would like to see a supercenter, despite the many opponents at last week's meeting.

"There were some people celebrating [the recommendation to deny the zoning request] but I think that celebration was premature," he said. "Quite frankly, it's going to come down to the elected officials of the City of Polson."