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Cheshire Crossing residents protest proposed Wal-Mart
The planned Supercenter may be built off Route 23 near Cheshire Road.
By KELLEY YOUMAN
Cheshire Crossing residents aren't rolling out the welcome mat for their proposed new neighbor.
During a tense meeting Thursday night, Wal-Mart officials promised that proposed new 200,000-square-foot store wouldn't be a big blue box, and residents challenged everything from the store hours, traffic and noise to its relocation in general.
The meeting was organized by Wal-Mart, but Delaware city officials and several City Council members attended to hear what the company had to say.
"You're my neighbors, too," said Dave Efland, city planning director and Cheshire Crossing resident. "But this is really Wal-Mart's meeting with you."
The proposal for the 22.5-acre site off of U.S. Route 23, between existing Cheshire Road on the north and the planned extension of New Cheshire Road across Route 23 to the south, calls for a 24-hour Wal-Mart Supercenter, including a tire and lube center, garden center and about 65,000-square-feet of grocery space. It will be located across Route 23 from a planned Byers Toyota dealership.
"Although we have a general prototype, each (building) design stands on its own," said Ron Mosby, community affairs manager for Wal-Mart. Officials came "partially unprepared," he said, because Wal-Mart doesn't want to "push something on the community."
Engineers and architects presented a light-colored building with differing roof heights on the front and entrances off Route 23 and both existing Cheshire Road and the planned extension of New Cheshire Road. The proposal has the store situated in the northeast corner of the lot, with parking to face Route 23 and New Cheshire Road. Delivery trucks would park to the back of the building, closest to the subdivision, and residents raised concerns about idling trucks and diesel pollution.
Proposed screening includes a 50-foot, heavily landscaped buffer around the store and a 6- to 10-foot wall at the back of the store to the shield the truck-loading docks.
The plans propose 28-foot light poles with directional lighting for the parking lot. Debra Sullivan of CESO Engineering said the city's strict lighting code must prevent light from bleeding off the property and affecting nearby Perkins Observatory.
The blue band and large Wal-Mart logo are purposely absent from the building design, Sullivan said.
"It's not just this big blob," said Sullivan. "It's not the typical blue logo ... this was designed for Delaware."
Heather Spencer, who lives at Cheshire Crossing, asked if other properties around Delaware were considered. Spencer said Delaware supports the current location at 1760 Columbus Pike and said many residents have to drive past the Lewis Center location on the corner of U.S. 23 and Powell Road as part of their daily commute. She questioned the need for another store on the already busy Route 23.
She said she would probably shop at a new Supercenter if it were located somewhere else in the city.
"Go in our back yards and you won't have our business," said Spencer.
The success of the current Delaware location is driving the need to move and expand to a Supercenter, Mosby said. The current location, a 99,000-square-foot store that officials said isn't large enough for expansion to a Supercenter, is already being marketed and could be sold before the new store is built, said Jeff Doss, Wal-Mart real estate manager.
Ninety percent of the time, when Wal-Mart owns an existing building, it's sold before the new one is built, Doss said.
Cheshire II subdivision resident Danny Stevens asked Doss and the other officials if they'd buy a home within a few hundred feet of a Wal-Mart -- "because I've got a house for sale if you move in there," said Stevens.
The company hasn't yet filed a preliminary development plan with the city. That plan, in addition to a final development plan, must be approved by both the Delaware Planning Commission and Delaware City Council before development could move forward.
Wal-Mart officials said revisions will be made to the plan and it will be presented to the public at a second meeting, set for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Delaware Area Career Center South Campus, 4565 Columbus Pike.
Sunday, January 8, 2006
By BONNIE BUTCHER
ThisWeek Contributor
In 2006, the Delaware City Schools Board of Education and the administration will continue to focus on academic improvement and district's financial health, the superintendent said.
"The biggest challenge for all of us who work on the academic piece of the district is how to focus our efforts so that we use our time, resources and personnel as efficiently as possible to help all students improve," Superintendent Mary Anne Ashworth said.
Ashworth said the district wants to facilitate improvement not only in students who have not been successful on state achievement tests, but also among the district's gifted student population and all other students.
"We have very talented kids who also need to grow and get better," Ashworth said. "We're looking at our (kindergarten) through 12th grade gifted programming."
At a December work session, school board members discussed expanding ways to communicate with the community, Ashworth said.
The board wants to find more ways to communicate with all aspects of the community, including business people and residents who no longer have school-aged children, Ashworth said.
"The schools have some impact on everybody in one way or another," Ashworth said.
The board will hear the results of an efficiency study at its Jan. 9 meeting.
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