Wal-Mart and Target Looking To Build
Last week at the Impact Fee hearing for the City of Douglasville, Robert Reynolds, Director of the Douglas County Development Authority, spoke to residents during a presentation in correspondence to the Impact Fee Coalition, a local group of businessmen against impact fees. Part of the presentation included an example about if a Super Target was seeking to build in Douglasville, impact fees would likely force the development to Villa Rica where there are none.
In reality there may be more truth to that example than previously known. Losing Georgia has learned that both Wal-Mart and Target are looking within the Douglas County market for another location to facilitate one of their “super” centers. There are already two Wal-Mart Supercenters in the Douglasville city limits, Thornton Road and Highway 5, but there is not a Super Target, the closest one being in Hiram, only a regular Target store on Chapel Hill Road.
Currently the western portion of Douglas County is being considered due to growth in Villa Rica, most notably the Mirror Lake region. The likelihood of a third Wal-Mart Supercenter is skeptical in relation to the political tensions that is in the government atmosphere and that there already is a Supercenter in Villa Rica on the Carroll County side.
However there is more leverage for Target to expand its footprint in West Georgia taking into account that the only other Target store in the area is in Carrollton. Whether Target decides to develop a standard store or Super Target is still in the air; then again Target may not even build in the county at all. This issue was discussed earlier on the website about a major grocery store chain looking to build in the Bill Arp community.
The outlook is questionable as impact fees come to closer becoming a certainty. There is no definite answer whether Wal-Mart or Target will go through with development in the county. If the City of Douglasville and Douglas County adopt impact fees, this would not affect the Cities of Villa Rica and Austell, even though they are located within the county, pushing development into those areas and maybe further west along I-20.
Is Bremen the next city in West Georgia to experience the rapid growth and associated problems like that of Douglasville?
The issue is proper planning in Douglasville not a Walmart or a Target! Maybe the author wants to drive to Villa Rica or Bremen to do his Grocery Shopping, or worse yet, how bout Atlanta? You can fight through traffic all the way there. Maybe you don’t want neighborhood stores or any conveniences and just flat out want preservationism at your core. No change is a red-herring and is not a feasible alternative in the rapid growing greater Atlanta. How bout stopping the litany of complaints and moving towards planned growth. Growth is coming wether you like it or not; I say apply common sense and planning which the impact fees may or may not provide depending on how they are executed by the City of Douglasville and the County. Again, the issue in my opinion is not Wal-Mart or Target or some emotional attachment; it is proper planning! The impact fees are only one piece of the solution for a better quality of life in D’ville.
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 amI don’t believe the author is complaining about the growth… The story was just a report that WalMart and Target were searching the area.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:06 pmThere are 3 Walmarts within a 5-10 minute drive of my home. I have not shopped there in about a year. I have “issues” with them. I perfer to go the locally owned ACE Hardware and other alternatives. If a “walmart” wants to build, the cost of doing so has little impact. They have build stores on some of the most expensive properties in Georgia. The true impact of impact fees will be on the locally owned stores and shops and the smaller new business that want to do business here. JB
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:59 amI was disturbed to hear from a neighbor tonight that Wal-Mart was trying to buy a parcel from a homeowner adjacent to the West River Place subdivision. The lot abuts a 26+ acre parcel on the corner of Highway 92 and Riverside Parkway.
This area will eventually be mixed use, which if done right is fine. But Wal-Mart, with its egregious business and environmental practices, doesn’t do mixed use well. We’re not talking neighborhood shops, folks. Its buildings, in my opinion, are eyesores. Its parking lots are one gigantic swath of impervious surface with zero landscaping or aesthetic value. Heat islands, light pollution, traffic, litter - all in the name of cheap goods from China and a few more low-paying service jobs. Woo-hoo.
Though I just received a tax notice that insists my property value has increased, I’ve no doubt a Wal-Mart next to the subdivision and the 24/7/365 headache it would bring would bring about a decrease in value in the minds of most home buyers. Maybe I’m missing something but it seems to me you’d have to be either insane, paid off, or both to see the good in living next door to a Wal-Mart.
May 14th, 2007 at 7:25 pmWal-Mart Supercenters = The necessary evil of America.
I think Wal-Mart is good for Douglas County, however I do think the stores do breed traffic congestion. Highway 5 at I-20 and Professional Parkway remains to be the second worst bottleneck in the County, next to the notorious Highway 5 at Douglas Boulevard. So, is building another Wal-Mart in Douglas County, the answer (or the right thing to do?). I think that it is, only if it being used to recycle what is already vacant, instead of tearing up greenspace and harming the already existing environment. You already have abandoned shopping centers along Fairburn Road and Stewart Parkway, why create the potential for another one - who knows, Wal-Mart may someday go under and leave Douglasville, along with a 1,000 other host cities holding the bag with abandoned shopping centers, left behind by Wal-Mart. Concentrate with what is existing, instead of creating a potential new problem.
As of the traffic congestion that Wal-Mart creates, obviously the demand is there, and to build another Wal-Mart in the County is the solution. The presence of another Wal-Mart in Douglasville, will help the already clogged congestion at these two intersections and will help spread the traffic rather than to concentrate it at just one or two close locations. The question is where: Like I said before, recycle what is already vacant!!!! My two cents.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:39 amI can say that Wal-Mart was looking to reestablish a store somewhere on Fairburn Road, south of Interstate 20. I’ve also heard that Wal-Mart was interested in the corner lot at Riverside and Fairburn Roads, but that was a few years ago. I can also say that this is no part of the Bankhead Overlay that was talked about earlier this year.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:55 amWal-Mart speaking with the property owner was a recent development.
Not that it matters to them, but I get angry every time I think about the way they’ve abandoned three locations in Douglas County that could be used for almost nothing else and that sat vacant for years. Talk about blight.
To Defcon’s point, just a few miles up Fairburn Road closer to I-20 is ample property already zoned for commercial use and better able to handle the traffic a Wal-Mart would bring than the Fairburn/Riverside corner they have apparently been looking at. The Piggly Wiggly / SaveRite area, for example. But Wal-Mart recycle a building? Ha. When pigs fly.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:36 pmIt’s already affecting Bremen.
May 31st, 2007 at 6:12 pmThis is going to ruin a lot of really nice land by turning it all into a grim mirror of Lithia Springs with little enclaves of subdivisions surrounding a central strip mall area dominated by walnmart and Target super stores.
“Go away keep your crappy city ways in the city”