Opponents: Supercenter in wrong spot
National Park Service, preservation groups dismayed Wal-Mart is going ahead with retail complex at The Wilderness
Date published: 12/10/2008
By CLINT SCHEMMER
Critics of Wal-Mart's proposed development at The Wilderness had hoped the world's largest retailer would move its project to avoid a clash with preservationists.
Now, they're preparing for a full-scale battle over a planned Supercenter less than a quarter-mile from the Civil War battlefield.
Russ Smith, superintendent of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, said yesterday that he is frustrated that Wal-Mart stuck with its Wilderness Corner site.
"I am very disappointed they didn't consider other sites and didn't listen to the feedback they got that this site is too close to the Wilderness battlefield."
Smith met with Wal-Mart officials about the project last summer, and expressed the National Park Service's opposition to its proposal.
In July, the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition wrote Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr., expressing its concerns that the Supercenter "would pave the way for desecration of the Wilderness with unnecessary commercial growth."
Other partners in the coalition--which includes the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield--met two weeks ago with Wal-Mart's Richmond lawyer and the tract's Vienna developer, reiterating their opposition.
"We're greatly concerned about the visual impact of what intensive commercial development will do to the entrance to this national park," Smith said, "the traffic that it will generate, the pressure it will bring to widen Route 20, and the precedent Wal-Mart will set for other development in that area of Orange County."
He said the developer's plan shows four pad sites for additional stores on the tract.
Smith said the tract is part of the battlefield, as defined by a congressional blue-ribbon panel. The Wilderness is one of the nation's most historically significant battlegrounds, the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission said, giving its the highest designation for preservation.
The Wal-Mart tract was directly behind the last line of Federal earthworks that extended across the Germanna Turnpike (now State Route 3). The Union Army's 6th Corps had field hospitals in the vicinity, said Eric Mink the park's cultural resources officer.
Daniel Holmes, state policy director with the Piedmont Environmental Council, said coalition members believe Wal-Mart will anchor other high-traffic retail stores, all of them "pouring more traffic onto Route 20, which is the heart of the battlefield."
Holmes said Orange County should evaluate the development proposed near the Route 3/Route 20 crossroad as a whole, not piecemeal.
"When you combine Wal-Mart's plan and the Wilderness Crossing scheme, you're looking at roughly 2.8 million square feet under roof," he said. "Central Park in Fredericksburg is zoned for 2.4 million square feet, and currently has 2.2 million square feet. These two developments would be about a half-million square feet larger than Central Park."
Jim Campi, policy director for the Civil War Preservation Trust, said that group continues to believe the Wilderness Corner tract is "extremely inappropriate for any kind of big-box commercial, especially a Wal-Mart.
"We're not telling Wal-Mart 'No way.' We're just telling them, 'Not here,'" Campi said.
Efforts to reach Wal-Mart and its Virginia attorney for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.
Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com
Date published: 12/10/2008
Most recent reader comments:
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
(posted by
kspecial
, Dec. 13, 2008 2:50 pm)
So i donned my gay apparel and got some odd reactions at
Walmart while singing Fa La La, La La La, La La La.
I went to Walmart today to buy Christmas cards
(posted by
Mandrake
, Dec. 12, 2008 9:28 pm)
and I saw some very nice looking well dressed people there. I
must admit I was wrong. Rick Wagoner was there picking up
some humble pie for $1. I guess he still had some cash he
didn't tell his interrogators about.
I went to the movies once to see "Gods and Generals"
(posted by
kspecial
, Dec. 12, 2008 10:45 am)
Jeff Shaara wrote Gods and Generals and The Last Full
Measure which are the prequel and sequel, respectively,to
his father Michael's award-winning novel The Killer Angels.
Great books, but the movie was very long and boring and
not well received. When I saw it opening week, there were
about 10 people in the whole theatre,including a family that
brought their 2 sons. At INTERMISSION, the kids asked me
what time it was (there was a LONG way to go.) I thought I
should report the parents for child abuse.
I was in a Walmart once..
(posted by
Mandrake
, Dec. 11, 2008 6:34 pm)
It was very much like a horror movie I saw years ago where
this yankee gets lost in VA and winds up in a town where it
is still 1862. All bloodthirsty fat and really ugly people in
that town. That was my first and last impression of Walmart.
But all those fat ugly people have to shop somehwere
where the goodies are cheap so why deny them the right to
get their chips, grits, Pabst blue ribbon beer etc at a
reasonable price.
Where do these people in Orange shop now?
(posted by
fugoff
, Dec. 11, 2008 1:03 pm)
I lived in Lake of the Woods for a few years. In order to go shopping we had to drive back into Fredericksburg, and shop at Wal-mart. These old timers already shop at Wal-mart why not put one closer? The civil war happened throughout Virginia, does that mean none of Virginia should be developed???
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