Activists with Responsible Growth for Northcross are celebrating today’s announcement that Wal-Mart will scale down its planned store at Northcross Mall. The Beast From Bentonville announced that, due to a changing business model, the store will now be 99,000 square feet, down from 192,000 (and less than half of the 225,000 proposed at one point).
RG4N announced in response that will drop appeals to the unsuccessful lawsuit it filed against the city of Austin and developer Lincoln Property last year to block the store.
“We still think a mixed-use development is the ideal for that location, but at least their new plan is something that can work without hurting the surrounding neighborhoods and small businesses,” said RG4N president Hope Morrison in a statement. “With this news, we feel very confident that the Northcross matter will be resolved without further legal action and look forward to working with the developer as the project moves forward.”
In a statement, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Lisa Elledge wrote, “As part of a nationwide effort and changing business model, Wal-Mart has been reevaluating store sizes throughout the country to enhance the value and service for every community. Therefore, Wal-Mart, through its landlord, Lincoln Properties [sic], intends to reduce the size of its already approved Northcross store. The new Northcross Wal-Mart would be approximately 99,000 square feet in size and would become a single level building with surface parking. The new Northcross Wal-Mart would have many of the same physical features that were approved in the current site plan and would still bring groceries and general merchandise to the underserved Northcross area.
“Wal-Mart is currently working to complete the modifications to the Northcross project. As soon as Wal-Mart and Lincoln Properties have finalized the site plan for the new Wal-Mart, the parties intend to provide more details to the City of Austin and the surrounding neighborhoods.”
This article appears in June 20 • 2008.