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Attention Neighbors!!!
Wal-Mart is Still Interested in a Wabash Site.
Wal-Mart is back with a proposal to put a 205,000 square foot Supercenter at the Southwest Corner
of Archer Elevator Road and Wabash Avenue (West of Buffalo Wild Wings).
This proposed Supercenter is the same size as the South Sixth Street location being built.
The Southwest Springfield Neighbors Association has met with Wal-Mart and found out a lot about this proposal, although there are still many unknowns. To bring the neighborhoods up to date and ask for comments on the proposed site, SWNA has scheduled a public informational meeting for
Monday, May 5, 2008, 6:30 p.m. at the K. of C. Hall, Meadowbrook & Iles to
Please plan to attend, and bring interested friends and family.
www.swsna.org swsna@comcast.net (note...new email address)
please advise us via email if you have updated your email address or would like to be added to our email list
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What exactly do we mean by “ Southwest Springfield ” as we use that term in our name and on this site? We think of Southwest Springfield as the area bounded on the east by Koke Mill Road , on the north by Old Jacksonville Road , on the south by Wabash Avenue and on the west by Lenhart Road .
Southwest Springfield is developing into a large residential area. The predominant land use is residential, with one exception: some low impact commercial corridors have developed along Koke Mill and Wabash . Significant land use conflicts have been minimal in this area for over 10 years because residential and commercial uses have coexisted peacefully.
This peaceful coexistence has suddenly been shattered by a proposal for a major big-box retail development in this area. Wal-Mart Stores has selected a site on the north side of Wabash Avenue between Archer Elevator and Meadowbrook Roads, and proposes to route 15,000 cars per day up these two roads and through our neighborhoods. This 32-acre site is adjacent to one large subdivision (over 500 homes) and could impact another seven subdivisions as well. Several thousand homes, and even more thousands of registered voters, are directly impacted by this major development and the subsequent development that will assuredly follow in its wake.
Click Here To See All The Latest Documents And Site Plans Involving Walmart
Wal-Mart, or for that matter, any other big-box retailer, has no legal right under existing ordinances to develop this 32 acre site. The simple truth is, land use decisions by elected officials—zoning changes and subdivision variances approved by ordinances—are the life's blood of big box retailers. Wal-Mart can have its way only if the Mayor and City Council affirmatively decide to make it happen.
In response to Wal-Mart's proposed development, we formed the Southwest Springfield Neighbors Association (SWSNA). Our goal is to ensure that the concerns of the thousands of residents in Southwest Springfield are heard, forcefully and professionally, when land use decisions are before the advisory bodies of the City and before the City Council. Already, through united and decisive intervention in the land use decision process, SWSNA has achieved what some said was impossible. Wal-Mart withdrew an initial zoning request (it will be back!), and the Regional Planning Commission tabled a subdivision variance request for 30 days so that SWSNA's concerns about traffic, storm water drainage and overall quality of life could be revisited by Wal-Mart and the Planning Commission. Related to this effort, SWSNA secured over 470 signatures on a petition in two days; approximately 50 residents showed up at a 9:30 a.m. Regional Planning Commission meeting to show their concern—a highly unusual turnout, to say the least.
The battle has really just begun. Wal-mart and other big box retailers are powerful and well-funded. But they are not invincible. In unity there is strength, and in knowledge there is power. Through this website, we hope to promote unity among the residents of Southwest Springfield . We hope to disseminate knowledge about the decisions now being made by the City, which will affect the quality of life in our neighborhoods for the next generation. We seek to insure that our unified voice is heard, and our political and legal strength is felt, by our elected representatives whenever our vital interests are at stake.