County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner

Wal-Mart Questions – con’t from last week
(I have received a large number of questions on Wal-Mart and will try to answer them over the next three weeks.)

Q.  What is next in the Wal-Mart development?
A. They are projected to open bids on the entire project on March 20th. We anticipate construction would begin within sixty days or sooner after that.

Q. You have said all along that Wal-Mart was not a “done deal” until the property was purchased.  Is it now a “done deal”?
A.  For all practical purposes you probably could say it is.  However, until they actually open and award bids on the construction and begin grading on the property, there is always the possibility, because of the economy, that there could be delays or other problems.  However, at this point everything looks very positive.

Q.  When would the Wal-Mart store open for business?
A.  The amount of grading on this site is well above average, so they are estimating that the building would be handed over to Wal-Mart from the contractor around the first of August, 2009, with the store opening four to 6 weeks later.  This extra delay is to allow time for installing fixtures, stocking the store and training employees.

Q.  Will there be any further work necessary with Wal-Mart and the county?
A.  Absolutely.  The water/sewer line extension is mostly being funded by Wal-Mart, so they will be monitoring the project with the county.  The largest hurdle and remaining unknown is the road bores.  Two 24” diameter pipes have to be installed under Hwy 515 from one side of the highway to the other.  One pipe will carry the sewer line and one the water and other utilities.  There are unknowns in boring for such a large pipe, mostly dealing with the possibility of hitting rock.  If there are any difficulties and/or cost overruns, the county, Development Authority and Wal-Mart will all be required to share in those cost overruns. 

Q. Will the county have any other cost on the project?
A.  Yes we will, but not very significant.   There will be a turning lane required onto Airport Terminal Road off Hwy 515, however, I was able to negotiate with Wal-Mart to add this to their engineering and they will also be paying for most if not all of the construction cost. 

Q. Is there any additional construction the county will be doing?
A.  Yes.  Those living immediately behind the new Wal-Mart site will have the largest negative impact because of the new store.  In order to assist them, I have agreed to widen Wintermute Road from the K-Road intersection down just past the Wal-Mart property.  This narrow road has been a safety hazard for those people for a long time.  This will further benefit those property owners since we will also be taking part of that road into the county road system.  We have never been able to acquire adequate right-of-way before, but Wal-Mart is giving the county the additional R/W from the property they purchased. We will also be installing some barrier shrubs and trees along the edge of this road to lessen the visual impact of the new store to those property owners.

Q. The photo of the new store in the North Georgia News does not look like a Wal-Mart.  Will that be what our store actually looks like?
A.  While I was not able to negotiate everything I would have liked, I did request we have a store that looked more like it belonged in the mountains.  They sent a team of designers to the area to look at different buildings and designs and colors. They also met with me and came up with this prototype design.  While it is still a “big box”, it certainly looks much nicer than most of their stores.  I was very pleased with their final design and colors.

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