submitted by Kay Newell [Email address: kayn7 #AT# austin.rr.com - replace #AT# with @ ]
Wooten NA meeting
Nov
13 2006
Richard Suttle of the law firm Armbrust & Brown – real
estate lawyer for Wal-Mart
city processes and has been issued. Wal-Mart will be leasing from Lincoln Properties. The lease was signed in the last month or
two. In the last two weeks they have
talked to City Council about the lease and the plans Lincoln & Wal-Mart
have for Northcross. City Council
members are the ones that said Lincoln/Wal-Mart had met with neighbors – this
information is wrong. Tonight is the
first meeting with neighbors.
Northcross
is a redevelopment of an existing mall with Wal-Mart as a tenant. The
duration of the lease is long-term. A question was raised – can this
Wal-Mart be
built along the lines of the Aurora, Colorado Wal-Mart. Richard said
after the redevelopment of this
mall the water quality would be better than it is now. There will be a
retention pond on the west
side of the property. Richard doesn’t
know if a TIA (Traffic Impact Analysis) was run, if it was it would be
on file
with the City. A TIA is run if there is
an increase of 2,000 trips a day. The
only thing left to do is to take out a building permit – since this is
a
redevelopment of an existing mall there won’t be any zoning changes
involved. A question was raised about the pending Big
Box Ordinance – would Wal-Mart hold off and go through that process –
Richard
doesn’t know, but will pass this and all other questions raised tonight
on to
Wal-Mart.
Richard said that because of the short
notification of the meeting they were unable to get a representative
from Lincoln properties or Wal-Mart at tonight’s meeting. Consequently,
there were a lot of questions that he could not answer.
Suttle confirmed this will likely be a 24×7 facility.
What can we do, if anything, to stop WalMart from moving into NorthCross mall?
I’d be willing to help stop this… Please contact me if you know of anything. Thanks.
My husband & I are “sick” about the news of the Wal-Mart moving into Northcross Mall
and its negative effect on our community. It comes with its reputation of destroying small businesses in areas and catering to a throw-away mentality created by cheap merchandise. A Wal-mart is still a Wal-mart, despite its outward appearance. This is just a guise the company uses to get into desirable neighborhoods/communitites. Read comments posted on a website dedicated to fighting Wal-marts in locations, http://www.walmartwatch.com.
Sendera Place NA in South Austin recently was able to defeat WM’s plans to locate near their neighborhood. How were they successful?
My husband & I can help anyone who wants to protest.
A group called Responsible Growth for Northcross plans to fight for a better vision than Lincoln Properties and WalMart have put forward. The group will be launching its website later this week at responsiblegrowthfornorthcross.org. The site will include details on a community meeting to be held the week after Thanksgiving for folks who want to join the fight.