DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, February 11, 2007 6:00 pm
Northeast Lincoln is getting a Wal-Mart after all.
More than a year after Mayor Coleen Seng threatened to veto plans for a development that included a Wal-Mart Supercenter, the developer said Wal-Mart is coming to the area, but will be smaller than originally envisioned in order to adhere to Seng’s size restriction.
Developer Steve Champoux said he was submitting “use plans” with the city that call for a Wal-Mart at his Prairie Village North development near 84th and Adams streets.
“It’s time north Lincoln got a shopping center to compete with south Lincoln,” Champoux said Monday.
The City Council and mayor signed off on Champoux’s revised development last week, but tenants weren’t identified in the plans.
Originally in 2005, the Wal-Mart was slated for the southeast side of 84th and Adams, but a nearby church protested and it was moved north.
Champoux’s early plans included a 230,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter, but Seng threatened to veto the plans, saying that was too big for the area. She later asked the City Council to limit the big box to 175,000 square feet.
Wal-Mart spokesmen long maintained that anything smaller than 195,000 square feet would be too small. Champoux talked to Target representatives, but said they weren’t interested in the area.
Even though Seng said it was a land use issue, not a Wal-Mart issue, the debate before the City Council became a Wal-Mart issue, drawing a roomful of opponents and inspiring legions of letters to the editor.
Four of the seven council members supported the original plan, but five votes are needed to override a veto. In January 2006 the council delayed action because no compromise could be reached.
Two weeks ago, Champoux returned to the council with new plans that called for two 175,000-square-foot big box stores with a pedestrian-friendly “town center” between them. The town center includes smaller retail stores and parking.
Combined, the two big boxes will be bigger than the original Wal-Mart Supercenter, but most likely because the business wasn’t mentioned, not a single person showed up last week to oppose the plans. The council approved the development, and the mayor signed off on it.
The irony was not lost on Champoux: “Without Wal-Mart’s name on it… nobody shows up and nobody cares,” he said.
On Monday, Seng said she wasn’t surprised that Wal-Mart will be one of the two big box tenants.
“I’m absolutely delighted,” she said. “It’s the right size development for the zoning that’s allowed. It will fit.”
She said the new plans are “so much better than before.”
“I never said I was opposed to Wal-Mart,” she said. “I was concerned about the size of the development.”
However, Champoux maintains that in private meetings with the mayor and several of her staffers last year, Seng said she would work with anybody but Wal-Mart.
“I even made her say it twice,” he said.
Seng did not return a call later Monday seeking comment about Champoux’s assertion.
The developer says the controversy and delays and revisions cost him about a half million dollars in extra engineering, legal fees, taxes and interest.
“It was a shame that they had to play such games with our project over the preference of one store over another at our expense,” he said.
Champoux will spend less money up front on city infrastructure costs. Under the original plans, he would have kicked in some $5 million primarily for street improvements in the area, which the city would have paid back when impact fees began being paid by homeowners and businesses. The revised plan requires him to front the city less than $2 million.
Champoux said the shopping center is designed to look something like the upscale Village Pointe shopping center in west Omaha — with large anchors on each end of a main street-like shopping village.
The Prairie Village North development also includes more than 800 homes, townhomes and apartments.
As for the other big box store, Champoux said he’d like to get a home improvement store or Gordman’s, for example.
The development will also have restaurants, banks and possibly an assisted living center.
“It’s not just a Wal-Mart,” Champoux said. “We have the opportunity to make this a very nice shopping center (that will) rival anywhere in town.”
Champoux said Wal-Mart hopes to be open by Christmas. Company representatives were not available for comment.
Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com..