Wal-Mart Suit Dropped

It's one lawsuit down and one to go in the messy Southwest Austin property dispute spawned by a proposed-then-abandoned Wal-Mart Supercenter a year ago. The landowner of the site at Slaughter and MoPac, S.R. Ridge LP, last week withdrew its lawsuit accusing the city and developer Stratus Properties of working in harmony with the organized opposition that ultimately convinced Wal-Mart to pull out of the project, which was to be developed by Stratus' rival Endeavor Real Estate Group. All is forgiven now, apparently, because S.R. Ridge has found an unidentified prospective buyer with no interest in continuing the legal battle. Unconfirmed rumors point to Target as the potential buyer.

By dropping the lawsuit – which many believed would have been dismissed by the court anyway – S.R. Ridge retains the right to refile the claim in the event the prospective buyer has a change of heart. This effectively keeps the city and Stratus mum on any other "conspiracies" they might come up with to prevent a big box from locating on the environmentally sensitive tract over the Barton Springs zone of the Edwards Aquifer. (The Wal-Mart project complicated plans for a nearby HEB-anchored center being developed by Stratus.) The 43-acre tract is exempt from the impervious-cover limits of Austin's Save Our Springs Ordinance and from the city's current ban on retail stores larger than 50,000 square feet over the aquifer, due to a 1996 settlement agreement between the property owner and City Hall.

However, opponents of an aquifer big box intend to keep alive their lawsuit against the city challenging that 1996 settlement itself. A coalition of environmental and Southwest Austin neighbor groups have questioned the legality of the agreement since it was approved without a supermajority council vote, in violation of the city's SOS Ordinance. (The same flaw has now jeopardized the city's similar settlement last year with Lowe's Home Centers.) The 1996 agreement had somehow managed to come together quietly under the radar, and was approved on a day that an ice storm had paralyzed much of the city, after about two minutes of Council discussion.