Behind chain-linked fences in Village Square shopping center, bulldozers create piles of dirt and broken concrete so high, signs hang on the fence to tell shoppers there is an Office Depot behind the construction and it is open for business.
The construction is the beginning of a long-debated project to renovate the College Drive shopping center for a super Wal-Mart.
Construction workers demolished The Brickhouse, Superfresh and long-closed Service Merchandise buildings during the summer, said Charles Landry, the attorney for Bright Meyers, Wal-Mart’s development company.
“There’s going to be a lot of construction between now and October,” Landry said.
Beginning this week, passersby will see walls for new buildings on the south side of the shopping center near Office Depot. Those buildings will house current Village Square tenants, the Great Wall Chinese Restaurant, Coffee Call, Classy Nails and Radio Shack, Landry said.
The roofs will be added in October, and retailers should be in their new stores by January or February 2004. But throughout the construction, retailers in the shopping center will be able to stay open in their current locations, he said.
And although construction may make it more difficult for shoppers to use the area now, renovating the Village Square is expected to improve business in the future.
“As far as business is concerned, it’ll be good because it will bring
more traffic to the area,” said Robert Cazes, a manager at Radio Shack.
Lester Guillot, Office Depot store manager, described the empty Service Merchandise as an “eyesore” and said the Wal-Mart will be good for the area because the space has been vacant for so long.
“I think something needed to be done whether it was Wal-Mart or somebody else,” Guillot said.
After the construction is completed on the south side of the shopping center, construction workers will tear down the north side where Rite Aid is located to build the much-discussed Wal-Mart SuperCenter, Landry said.
Once the College Drive Wal-Mart opens in fall 2004 the Wal-Mart on Perkins Road will close. Employees from Perkins will be transferred to the College Drive store, which is expected to create about 100 new jobs in addition to those transferring employees, Landry said.
He said people have shown interest in the Perkins space, which many residents fear will be left abandoned, but there are no definite plans for it yet.
“There really hasn’t been much in the way of serious conversation because people are waiting to see when Wal-Mart will be out and it will be available for leasing,” Landry said.
In addition to renovations of Village Square shopping center, the developers are spending about $1 million on road improvements to College Drive to relieve the traffic congestion that residents were concerned a Wal-Mart SuperCenter would cause.
Landry said the developers will create an additional through lane at the College Drive and Perkins Road intersection, so two lanes will cross Perkins to Lee Drive instead of one.
Other improvements include adding traffic lights at intersections near Village Square and creating a new lane to Interstate 10 from College Drive.
“[The new lane] is the principal improvement on College Drive,” Landry said. “It will get traffic that wants to get on the interstate sooner.”
Developers also will create a new road and intersection north of the interstate near College Drive and Balis Drive. Landry said all of these improvements will address the traffic from Wal-Mart and provide additional capacity on College Drive.
But Richard Barker, president of the Southside Civic Association, said the improvements are a “Band-Aid approach” to an area where traffic is already “horrendous.”
“It may help in the immediate future, but it’s just going to fill up with traffic,” Barker said.
Barker and other residents have been fighting the project since Bright Meyers approached Landry in fall 2002 about the space and throughout the process leading to the project’s approval in March.
“It was a done deal from the word ‘go,'” he said.
Barker said a Wal-Mart SuperCenter is too large for the area. He and other residents argued in favor of developments that would be unique to the community.
“We wanted to pare it down so it would be more of a neighborhood place than a stopping place for tailgaters,” he said.
Landry said all the developers can do is work as best they can to address residents’ concerns.
“There’s always a fear of the unknown,” he said. “That’s reasonable, and it’s expected.”
According to the city planning commission, there is nothing to do legally to stop the Wal-Mart construction, but Barker said members of several area civic associations have formed a committee to track the development in Village Square and ensure developers create the improvements they have promised.