Wal-Mart says no Supercenter in Belfast

BELFAST – If the city’s moratorium against big-box stores already had dimmed Wal-Mart’s plans to do business here, this week’s vote to cap the size of retail projects has put out the lights.

A spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. confirmed Thursday that the nation’s No. 1 retailer has not been pursuing a Belfast location for one of its Supercenters.

But the company remains interested in other projects around Maine, including expansion of its presence in Greater Bangor into one or more Supercenters.

The Belfast City Council enacted a moratorium against large stores a year ago, after Wal-Mart announced its intention to build a 165,000-square-foot Supercenter on land it had optioned off Route 3.

To build on that parcel would have required a change in zoning, and the council imposed its moratorium on any stores larger than 25,000 square feet before Wal-Mart was able to submit a formal application. As a result, Wal-Mart allowed its option to lapse. Credit card lender MBNA, a neighboring property owner, later bought the land.

Besides enacting the moratorium, the council also scheduled a citywide referendum as a means of gauging the community’s support for so-called big-box development. When the votes were tallied Tuesday, it was evident that voters were emphatic in their opposition to all stores larger than 75,000 square feet. The big-store proposal was defeated by a 70 percent plurality.

Building to the city’s requirements would not be feasible for Wal-Mart because even its smaller stores are much larger than the size adopted by the Belfast voters.

Wal-Mart’s store in Rockland is 94,000 square feet, with an attached 5,000-square-foot garden center. The Supercenter initially proposed for Belfast would have sold groceries and automotive supplies as well as general merchandise and garden supplies.

Wal-Mart spokesman Keith Morris said the company’s interest in Belfast had been lukewarm since the Route 3 site was deemed unsuitable. He said the company had looked at a number of sites in Belfast and the surrounding area but was unable to find one to its liking.

“Since the moratorium, we’ve never really pursued building a store in Belfast,” Morris said Thursday. “For us, the election really doesn’t change that much. We’ve never had a plan that we were actively pursuing.

“We did look at that one site on Route 3, but we never even got to the point of doing tests to see whether it was conducive for building on,” he said. “We did look at other sites, but the only one we found that may have been viable was that one on Route 3.”

During the debate over the moratorium and referendum, a site off Route 137 also was mentioned as a possible location for a large commercial development. Owners Wayne Corey and Roger Webber were upset when the city declined to designate their property as suitable for big-box development and have hired a lawyer to protect their interests.

A representative of Konover & Associates, a Connecticut firm that has developed a number of Wal-Mart projects, including one in Auburn, informed the council of his company’s interest in the Corey-Webber site, but would not reveal the name of its client.

Morris claimed no knowledge of Konover’s plans. Attempts to reach Konover’s John Larson were unsuccessful.

Morris noted that Wal-Mart had a half-dozen projects in Maine in various stages of development but that a project for the Belfast-Rockland corridor definitely is on the back burner. He said the company had enough on its plate for the next eight to 12 months to keep it busy.

“We’re not actively looking at Belfast at this point. We don’t have a plan and haven’t proposed one,” Morris said. “We’re not even looking at building a store in the [Waldo County] area right now.”