After two and a half years of battling Wal-Mart, it appears citizens in Bangor, Maine have finally blown a Wal-Mart supercenter out to sea. In late March, Maine Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Hjelm affirmed a decision made by the Bangor Planning Board in 2001 to reject the Widewaters-Stillwater development corporation’s application to build a 224,000 s.f. Wal-Mart superstore near the Penjajawoc Marsh. The DeWitt, NY based developer needed a development permit to proceed with their project, and this latest ruling leaves the Wal-Mart project full of water. The court decision came on the heels of another anti-Wal-Mart ruling from the state’s Board of Environmental Protection, which voted 5-3 to reject the development permit. Wal-Mart told the Bangor Daily News that the company was “reviewing its options internally”, but the Bangor Area Citizens Organized for Responsible Development (BACORD) did not hestitate to comment. “Basically, this is what we were expecting,” Valerie Carter told the Daily News. “We did not think there was much, if any, chance that Widewaters would win this appeal because the planning board put so much time and effort into its finding of fact. While we were not surprised, we were certainly gratified that the judge found in our favor.” The court’s decision suggests that Wal-Mart will have to take off its “available buildings” list the Wal-Mart discount store that already exists in Bangor on Springer Drive. Wal-Mart has had its 114,000 s.f. store on the market since at least 2002, apparently confident that its superstore project was in the bag. But now the Widewaters project has been swept away.
This particular Wal-Mart incursion was first mentioned on this website back in November of 2000, when BACORD alerted us of the threat. For more background on the evolution of Bangor’s battle, search this site by the name of the city.
