Walmart nearly ready to bid out construction of store

Walmart officials say they should be in the position to bid out the construction of their eastern Orange County store in about a month’s time. The retailer awaits the results of its second site plan review, having revised its plan and resubmitted it to the Orange County planning office in December following a first round of review during the fall. If the site plan is ultimately approved, Walmart’s building plans will also need to undergo the review process before a building permit can be obtained.

“We’re looking to have all our necessary permits in hand by next month,” said Bill Wertz, divisional director for Walmart. “We’ve submitted a detailed site plan to the county and have been working with VDOT on some traffic improvement plans to the final design. Once all that is done and approved, we hope to open the project up for bid.”

Walmart first submitted its site plan to the county for review in November of last year, and then a second time in December after receiving comments from the county’s planning and zoning office, VDOT, Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District and Rapidan Service Authority. Orange County planner Kevin McMahan said that the review done by the county only found five editing errors. Site plans deal with the affected land and access roads associated with the store and comments on everything from turning lane length and signage, to spelling and punctuation are typical in the review. McMahan said the county’s, as well as VDOT’s and RSA’s comments on the most recently submitted site plan have been forwarded to Walmart’s engineering firm, Bowman Consulting. Only comments from CSWCD remain, he said

“I had never done a Walmart review before, but when site plans for subdivisions come through our office, it’s not uncommon to see multiple revisions,” said McMahan.

Wertz said that Walmart remains in a holding pattern until the site plan, with comments, is returned to them, but said the project remains on schedule.

“Basically we’re on track,” said Wertz. “In a process like this, we don’t control that much. Obviously, as we’ve said in the past, we’d like to move ahead as quickly as possible and when the ball is in our court we’ve tried to move expeditiously to get the material submitted.”

The 2012 Christmas season would appear a desirable target date for Walmart to set its sights on, but Wertz said such an opening would be unlikely.

“It takes typically a year to a year and a half to build a store from the ground up,” said Wertz. “It wouldn’t be impossible to open by Christmas, but we would be moving at an unusually fast pace.”

When opening a store near an approaching holiday, Wertz said Walmart will either open before the holiday or after, but never during.

“We like to have stores open in advance of the holiday,” said Wertz. “If it’s October or November and the store isn’t completed yet, we’ll typically wait until after the holidays for the opening.”

Despite the progress, Wertz said he couldn’t speculate on when the Orange County Walmart might break ground, but has said in the past that spring 2012 appears likely.