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BREO asks Walmart to stick with plans for bigger store

July 7, 2009, 2:27 pm

A Pullman group is calling for Walmart to abandon its revised plans for a smaller super center on Bishop Boulevard and stick with its originally planned structure.

Businesses & Residents for Economic Opportunity is urging Walmart to move forward with its plans for a 223,000-square-foot store, according to a news release issued Tuesday by BREO co-founder Tom Forbes.

Walmart submitted amended plans for a 155,000-square-foot structure last month. Company spokeswoman Karianne Fallow said the move was made to “address sustainability.”

Fallow also said Walmart would move forward with plans for the larger store if there were any appeals to the plans for the smaller store, according to the release.

The Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development appealed the company’s original State Environmental Policy Act checklist and site plan on the grounds that the store would negatively affect stormwater run-off, traffic and Pullman’s local economy. PARD unsuccessfully took the case through a hearing examiner, Whitman County Superior Court and the Washington Division III Court of Appeals before giving up their efforts in June 2008.

Forbes indicated that his group believes PARD intends to appeal the new site plans as well.

“In this time of economic uncertainty and budget crises, the city of Pullman cannot afford to let an unelected cabal of Washington State University faculty stymie progress any longer. Elected officials, the business community, from Ed Schweitzer and Duane Brelsford, Jr. on down, and city residents all overwhelmingly agree that we need to move on, and quickly,” Forbes stated.

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