On October 18, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart officials were in Derry, New Hampshire hustling town officials about building a 208,000 s.f. supercenter. The company unveiled a site plan with the Planning Board. But residents of Derry who live near the site told officials that the one Wal-Mart Derry already has, was one more than enough. Wal-Mart had to get the planning board to agree to consolidate several lots to create a large lot of 56 acres. The project’s scale also required the widening of a local road leading to the site. The land is located in a tax increment financing district, which means that Wal-Mart was looking for a public subsidy to help pay for the project. Wal-Mart was reportedly set to pay $1 million in road improvements — but area residents questioned why Derry needed another Wal-Mart, since the only change would be the addition of groceries to what is already sold at the existing Wal-Mart on Manchester Road. The existing discount store will close when the supercenter opens, leaving the town with a major vacant property that could take years to fill. Wal-Mart does not own its current building, only leases it. The site has abutting residential properties, and all Wal-Mart has offered to do is maintain a 50 foot buffer of plantings — which is not enough to hide the sights and sounds of a 24/7 supercenter. Wal-Mart said it would build a sound and light barrier behind the store to minimize impacts on residences in the area. But this week residents learned that the only sound neighbors will hear from Wal-Mart is the sound of them pulling their project out of town. The retailer’s sudden collapse left local town officials with subsidies all over their faces. The town recently approved a $6.5 million bond to widen the road to Wal-Mart, and according to the Eagle Tribune newspaper, the town has put up $500,000 in design work on the road project already. The state also chipped in $700,000 in taxpayer’s subsidies. Wal-Mart’s New England field representative, who has been making a lot of pullout announcements recently, repeated the standard line that the debacle in Derry was due to the company’s national cutback in new supercenters. Wal-Mart noted that it was going to cost them too much to get the permits they needed for their store. Town Council Chairman Brian Chirichiello told the Eagle Tribune last fall that he was “99.9 percent certain” that Wal-Mart was going to built in town. That’s why he recommended spending half a million on road upgrades. The town was counting on Wal-Mart’s $1 million. Chirichiello said Wal-Mart had offered a year ago to front the town $1 million in exchange for control over the road project, and if Wal-Mart later backed out of the deal, they would get their $1 million back. Councilor Kevin Coyle, who did not support Wal-Mart’s deal, says now that he was right about the company. “I said, ‘We shouldn’t be selling our soul to Wal-Mart for one million dollars.'”
So the Wal-Mart supercenter is gone, and the town will now have to make do with its “smaller” 114,000-s.f. store, which is located just across the street from the proposed supercenter. Derry’s slogan is, “New Hampshire’s Place to Be.” But Derry won’t be the place to be for a supercenter. Readers are urged to send a note to Virginia Roach, chair of the Derry Planning Board at [email protected], who said she was shocked at Wal-Mart’s withdrawal. Tell Roach, “Now that Wal-Mart has left Derry at the altar, it’s a good time to think about how to prevent national chain stores from doing this to you again. To avoid a Big Mistake, Derry should put a cap on the size of retail buildings of 65,000 sf. That way, if another big box store comes and goes, your economy is not built around that company. One Wal-Mart in Derry is one more than enough. Wal-Mart is not a form of economic development, it just displaces existing jobs. You were throwing away state and local tax dollars by offering them public subsidies. The world’s richest retailer doesn’t need public welfare. Derry doesn’t need the traffic, or the crime. You are lucky to see Wal-Mart walking away, and only leaving you holding the $500,0000 bag.”
