The Allandale Reporter

Construction on Northcross Wal-Mart to begin in the spring

According to a recent story in the Austin American-Statesman," Work to start in early 2009 on Northcross Wal-Mart," by Shonda Novak, dated December 25, 2008, the new Wal-Mart at Northcross will be opening the summer of 2010. Construction will begin this spring. Most of the west end of the mall has been torn down. The photo to the left is basically a facade. Behind it is concrete and debris. The new Wal-Mart will be 99,000 square feet, one-half the size originally planned. It will be the anchor store for the mall and have groceries and a pharmacy. The final design has not been completed.

Revised Northcross Mall Site Plan Approved

Lincoln Northcross, LTD resubmitted the site plan for the Northcross Mall redevelopment in August that included the scaled down Wal-Mart. On November 24, 2008 that site plan was approved. The revised plan is for a single-story structure that is 98,800 SF - 75,000 SF general retail and 23,800 SF food sales. You can get the details on the site plan at the City's Permit web site. This link should take you to a summary of what was submitted. The permit number is 2008-091847 EV. The Allandale Neighborhood Association met with Lincoln's attorney Bruce Scrafford in August just prior to the filing. They also met with the City of Austin during the review process. 

Highlights of changes to the Wal-Mart planned for Northcross

Tom Linehan

Representatives of the Allandale Neighborhood Association and RG4N met with Lincoln Properties' attorney Bruce Scrafford Wednesday night to get an overview of the changes planned for the Wal-Mart at Northcross. The most important change is the store will be 1/2 the size (99,600 square feet) of what was originally planned. It will not be a Supercenter. The revised plans will retain the design and materials originally presented however it will be a single-story structure without a multi-level parking lot.  Lincoln and Wal-Mart will be submitting a revised site plan to the city in the next week or two. There was no Wal-Mart representative at the meeting. Wal-Mart is putting together a Fact Sheet on the new plans and wasn't ready with the details for the meeting.

Once the site plan is submitted it could take the City a month or longer to review and approve. There were many questions regarding traffic impact and mitigation measures, truck routes, access to the center from the bus stop, security, etc. Bruce was not prepared to answer a number of the questions as they were Wal-Mart specific. He did say he doesn't anticipate that more than 30 to 40 percent of the store will be grocery. The remainder will be general retail. The truck routes will be the same as originally agreed.

Statesman Article Regarding Wal-Mart's Plans

Here is the Statesman's coverage of Wal-Mart's decision to scale back the planned store at Northcross, "Wal-Mart plans smaller Northcross store," by Shonda Novak. The comments attached to the story  about Wal-Mart's decision - and there are many, make for an interesting read.

REASON PREVAILS - A WAL-MART FIT FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD

by Tom Linehan

WAL-MART IS SCALING BACK IT'S STORE TO HALF THE ORIGINAL SIZE! Instead of a 200,000 plus sq ft SuperCenter, they will be building a 99,000 sq ft Wal-Mart.

That's fine with Allandale. We've never opposed a Wal-Mart going into Northcross, we've opposed a SuperCenter going in there. It has been a long, hard and costly effort trying to keep a SuperCenter out. Allandale can't handle the traffic and it's a threat to existing businesses. The majority of our residents have made it clear to us they don't want to be a SuperCenter neighborhood.

Yesterday our attorney, Bruce Bigelow called to say Lincoln and Wal-Mart were making a public announcement saying they were "reducing the NorthCross addition such that Wal-Mart would be 100,000 rather than 219,000 or 192,000 plus 5,500 garden center."  He further noted that Lincoln requested we not move forward with the appeal. Lincoln offered to withdraw any claim against ANA for attorneys fees. The new Wal-Mart would be less square footage, 99,000 sq feet, to trigger the Big Box Ordinance requiring a public hearing.

We have been involved in this fight for almost two years. We got an inkling of it back in June, 2006 when the Austin American-Statesman ran an article suggesting a Wal-Mart was being considered for Northcross. Below is a timeline made up of the headlines from the stories on this web site as the events unfolded. You can go back and read them here.

Many thanks to all of the people in the neighborhood who supported us and who put the time and effort and money into this cause. There has been SO MUCH work that has gone into this. Thanks to RG4N for all of their work as well. They raised it to the level of concern it required and organized surrounding neighborhoods to get involved. It is extremely disappointing/frustrating/disturbing that we both saw the need to pursue a lawsuit to stop the development.

A special thanks to ANA's Northcross Committee whose members include Katie Hansen, Michael Bomba, myself and Allan McMurtry who headed it up. And thanks to our lawyers, Bruce Bigelow and Maura Phelan with Blazier, Christensen, Bigelow & Virr, PC for steering us through the process and for their willingness to pursue the appeal. It's satisfying knowing that Allandale will not be known as the only Austin central city neighborhood with a SuperCenter.

Judge Cooper awards Lincoln $22K in attorneys fees

Judge Margaret Cooper awarded Lincoln Properties $22,748 in attorney's fees attributed to defending against Allandale's claims regarding approval of the Northcross site plan that includes a 196,000 sq ft Wal-Mart Supercenter. While the order has not been finalized, this is the amount granted by Judge Cooper at the hearing that took place on Monday, April 14.

Hearing on Attorneys Fees Monday, April 14th

Northcross Mall Lawsuit
Allan McMurtry

The attorneys for Allandale have filed a petition before the District Court in Austin, Texas seeking payment of part of our legal fees as they relate to our lawsuit.  We have incurred expenses due to the claim filed against us by Lincoln Properties and have filed to be recompensed for those expenses. 

This petition will be heard on April 14th at 9:00AM in the 200th Judicial District Court of Travis County in the Travis County Courthouse.  Once this matter is taken care of, we will be filing an appeal of the original verdict from November of 2007.  This appeal will be before the Texas Court of Appeals.

In the Statesman's Opinion

In case you missed it, the Austin American-Statesman's editorial board wrote the following editorial concerning the outcome of the lawsuits regarding the planned Northcross Supercenter in Friday's paper, "Benefits and risks of Northcross activist." To summarize, fighting city hall can be a noble effort but advised against appealing the decisions. It would be costly and look at what happened to SOS. We had a weak case. If it were a Whole Foods, we wouldn't be fighting it. Hating Wal-Mart does not a legal case make. Be happy with the concessions we received. It will be a greatly improved mall, a convenient superstore, and we will have more shopping choices. Your opinion?

Court Rules in favor of the City

Late yesterday afternoon Judge Orlinda Naranjo issued her ruling against RG4N allowing Lincoln and Wal-Mart to move forward on development of the 192,000 Supercenter on the west side of the Northcross property. You can read the judge's ruling here and RG4N's response to it here. For more information about the ruling, read today's Austin American-Statesman's article, "Judge says Wal-Mart can be built at Northcross Mall," by Katie Humphrey and Sarah Coppola.

Special ANA General Meeting, Thursday

There will be a special Allandale Neighborhood Association Membership meeting to discuss the Northcross Lawsuit

Date: Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tim: 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Location - Northwest Recreation Center, 2913 Northland Drive

Tom Linehan
President, Allandale Neighborhood Association