LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / August 11, 1999

HAHNVILLE – A “mid-level” Super Wal-Mart, complete with grocery, pharmacy, photo lab, auto center and garden center, is on the fast track for U.S. Highway 90 in Boutte.Opening is projected by planners for March 2001.

However, though shoppers may be ready, even eager for the new store, some business owners are urging a last-ditch blockade from St. CharlesParish.

Bob Monti of the St. Charles Business Association claims the store “willclose eight to 10 small businesses on Highway 90, and we’ll lose two of the three supermarkets we have.”On the other hand, Janella Rensberger of Paradis exclaimed, “Thank you very much for building a Wal-Mart!” The Wal-Mart is to be located at the current site of the St. Charles RotaryClub’s Alligator Festival, in front of Primrose Estates subdivision, and between Coronado Park subdivision and West St. Charles Baptist Church.The store will take eight months to construct, but site preparation will not begin until after the 1999 Alligator Festival, Dennis Carlton, real estate broker for Wal-Mart, pledged.

With three and one-half acres under roof, the store will also have a traffic signal located at the western end of the property.

Thirty people attended a town hall meeting called by Parish Councilman Bill Sirmon Monday night at the St. Charles Parish courthouse, mostly withCoronado Park residents.

Most of those residents supported the Wal-Mart idea, but cautioned against impact on traffic and drainage.

Ken Riggin, president of the Coronado Park Civic Association, urged the new traffic signal be timed with others along U.S. 90, in order to maintainan even traffic flow.

Officers of the association met with Wal-Mart developers several weeks ago. This fact irked Monti, who said he only learned about the plan that dayand scrambled to make phone calls to rally support among businesses.

The Wal-Mart developers promised to meet with the St. Charles BusinessAssociation at its next meeting, set Sept. 2.Another feature planned at the Wal-Mart property is a one-acre plot on the easternmost edge of the U.S. 90 frontage, set aside for either a bank orrestaurant.

The parking lot will be lit by 42-foot light fixtures, screened against direct shining into the adjoining residential areas. And also, according toproject engineer Paul Xhajanka, the new store will provide 350 new jobs, 70 percent of them full-time, in the 154,000-square-foot building.

Sirmon said the Parish Council has been asking the state highway department for additional traffic signals along U.S. 90, including at BayouGauche Road and in front of Hahnville High School.

Coronado resident David Ory called for a reduction of the highway’s speed limit between Boutte and the Willowdale light, from 45 to 35 mph.

Coronado resident Mike Parker also expressed his concern of drainage, and he submitted a videotape showing drainage patterns in the area. He saidthat the Coronado drainage now goes to the vacant land to be occupied by the Wal-Mart.

Project engineer David Duplantis explained that behind the store will be a holding pond to catch and store rainwater, then release it to the parish’s drainage system.

Sirmon added a drainage impact study is being submitted but said Wal- Mart “is going beyond that” by submitting additional off-site impact data.

Monti said an economic and social impact study is needed as well.

“We all hear when Wal-Mart comes in, it immediately kills all the small businesses,” Sirmon said. “I just want to hear the facts.”

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