TOWN OF LOCKPORT: Wal-Mart back on town's docket

By Tasha Kates/katest@gnnewspaper.com
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal

July 25, 2007 02:24 pm

— TOWN OF LOCKPORT — Wal-Mart is going back to the planning board.
Leslie M. Senglaub, an attorney for the retailer, sent a letter to town officials last week to ask for the project to be placed on the planning board’s Aug. 14 worksession agenda.
The renewal of the project comes six months after Wal-Mart pulled it off the table through a letter from Senglaub sent in January. In April, company spokesman Phil Serghini said the project was considered “dormant,” and Wal-Mart was looking at other sites in the area for a supercenter.
Serghini said the company has since restarted negotiations with General Growth Properties, who owns the old Lockport Mall that is the proposed site of the supercenter.
“We do not have a final agreement with General Growth but we are finalizing the details at this time,” Serghini said.
Wal-Mart has not commented on why the deal with General Growth fell through in the first place, although town officials have hypothesized the mall owner raised the price after the Dec. 31 deadline passed on their previous agreement.
General Growth spokesman David Keating said Tuesday the company spokesman who comments on development was unavailable. A message left for him was not immediately returned.
Town Supervisor Marc Smith said Tuesday Wal-Mart was “a week or two away” from getting a decision on its site plan, variances and special use permit for their proposed 186,000-square-foot building when they left the table in January. The planning board approved the final environmental impact statement Dec. 28, and their zoning variances had been pared back from 41 to four.
In the interim, Wal-Mart opposition has taken some time to rest from research and meeting attendance said Micki Magno of Citizens for Smart Growth.
“I guess we have to get busy,” Magno said. “We really needed the break.”
Wal-Mart has been in front of the planning board for several years on this project and has asked them to halt the proposal previously. In September 2004, the company pulled the Supercenter plans from the table and returned the following spring with a redesigned plan to satisfy residents and planning board members.
Serghini did not specify whether or not any design changes had been made to the proposed site this time around.
Senglaub’s letter did state Wal-Mart would be keeping its lease on its current South Transit Road location after moving to the old Lockport Mall site and would seek a tenant for the building.
Contact reporter Tasha Kates at 439-9222, ext. 6241.