FRONT ROYAL, Va. -- From their front steps, George and Gloria Pridgen believe they can see the future, and it's not a pretty sight.
On a stretch of pasture that begins a few yards from their home and slopes down to the Shenandoah River, Wal-Mart plans to build a 24-hour, 184,000-square-foot superstore. The back of the building would be 150 feet from the Pridgens' property in the Riverview community, a scenic part of town.
"That's going to wipe me right out," said George Pridgen, a telephone company manager who fears a plunge in property values and other adverse effects if the store is built. "This is going to change our whole way of life out here."
The 121-acre tract that Wal-Mart Stores covets, most of it flood plain bordering the south fork of the Shenandoah, is shaping up as the latest battleground in a struggle between the world's largest retailer and residents fighting to preserve open space and their communities' small-town character.
Advertisement
The $218 billion company, which employs more than 1.3 million people at 4,300 stores worldwide, wants Front Royal's Town Council to approve a zoning change -- from residential to commercial -- that would allow the project to go forward. But residents of this town of 13,000 in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains are organizing to oppose it. They say the massive store would snarl traffic, pollute the Shenandoah, create safety problems for a nearby elementary school and spoil the scenic northern entrance to the 214-year-old town.
Wal-Mart disagrees. Officials say they are going out of their way to mitigate the impact of the proposed store, having successfully dealt with similar concerns in numerous other communities. The store would provide as many as 450 jobs and generate an estimated $900,000 a year in sales tax revenue for Front Royal and Warren County.
This isn't the first time Northern Virginians have taken on Wal-Mart. Opponents lost a fight against a new store in Warrenton a few years ago and so far have not been able to stop plans for a 143,000-square-foot store on Route 1 outside the upscale Southbridge community in Prince William County.
Advertisement
However, opponents did derail a store proposed for Ferry Farm, George Washington's boyhood home in southern Stafford County, by lobbying for the 85-acre property to receive National Historic Landmark status.
The Front Royal opponents stop short of saying they don't want Wal-Mart at all. Instead, they are urging the retail behemoth to pick another location, about a mile and a half away, that they argue is more appropriate for commercial development.
So far, all but one of the town's elected leaders -- six council members and the mayor -- are holding their views close to the vest. The lone exception is Fred P. Foster, a jewelry store owner elected in May on a platform of opposition to Wal-Mart's proposed location at what is known as the Riverton site on Route 55 near Route 522.
The town's planning commission is scheduled to make a recommendation on the zoning change after a Dec. 18 public hearing. The Town Council, which has the final say, is expected to decide the issue in February or March.
Advertisement
"We know we're not going to keep them out -- they're too big," Foster said. "We're trying to be a good neighbor to Wal-Mart. . . . We're saying, 'Welcome to Front Royal, but let's put you in the best place.' "
With a huge cleanup of toxic waste still underway at Front Royal's former Avtex Fibers plant, site of Virginia's worst environmental disaster, Foster argued that the town hardly needs more pollution problems. He and other opponents said plans to put stormwater ponds for the project in the flood plain would pollute the Shenandoah with runoff from the proposed store's vast parking lot.
"I'm not happy for my city that there would be pollution problems when we're still working on a pollution problem with Avtex," Foster said.
The chemical-textile plant, once the world's largest producer of rayon and a major defense contractor, was shut down in 1989 afer being cited for 2,000 pollution violations. More than 50 years of operations left buildings permeated with asbestos, PCBs, mercury, lead and other toxic materials, as well as some 200 acres of chemically contaminated lagoons and sludge pools beside the river.
Advertisement
In an effort to rally opposition to the Wal-Mart zoning change and urge the retailer to pick another location, residents have formed a group called Save Our Gateway, set up a Web site (www.saveourgateway.com) and distributed bumper stickers reading, "Wal-Mart Yes! Route 55 No!!"
"We decided from the outset we cannot oppose Wal-Mart," said Craig Laird, a computer store owner and vice president of Save Our Gateway. "They're powerful, and we're amateurs. . . . Fighting them head-on never works. They end up dividing the community."
In pushing for another location, off Route 522 just north of Interstate 66, "we're trying to be moderate," Laird said.
Riverview residents such as George McDermott, a retired insurance agent, take a harder line. "Trying to be nice guys with these people is an utter waste of time," he said. He scoffed at Wal-Mart's plan to give about 73 acres of the site to the town, saying the land is mostly in the flood plain and is "pretty worthless."
Advertisement
Land-use attorney John Foote, who is representing Wal-Mart in the Front Royal case, said the cost of site development at the alternative location would be "exorbitant." The ground there is filled with rock and would require blasting that would add at least $3 million to the cost, he said. As for the argument that a company Wal-Mart's size could easily afford it, Foote said: "It didn't get huge by making decisions like that. . . . It doesn't make imprudent business decisions."
Foote said opponents ignore about $800,000 in road improvements that Wal-Mart is prepared to make at the Riverton site to mitigate the impact not only of its customers but of the "historic traffic growth" that will take place anyway. The road improvements include widening Route 55, which is now two lanes, in front of the store.
He also dismissed the pollution arguments, saying that even if some stormwater ponds are built in the flood plain, "that is entirely permissible in Virginia." Besides, "if you've got a flood that big, you don't have a pollution problem," he said.
"For all the fussing and moaning we're hearing, Wal-Mart coexists happily with literally thousands of American towns," Foote said.
Wal-Mart's plan to build on this site near the South Fork Bridge in Front Royal has raised opposition among residents.George and Ann McDermott walk through a field alongside their subdivision, Riverview. Wal-Mart property would begin 150 feet from the fence.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZK6zr8eirZ5nnKSworiOa2dpal9mf3B8kWidq6eeqXqzu9iao2avkaF6rq3RrWSfp5Woera%2Bxp5kqKyYmr9uv8itnGiZZmuGc4TCmmSbnJKYenWyl3Fkmp1oaXp5rcRtm5qbY5qup4WO