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By CLINT SCHEMMER
Preservation groups have fired the opening salvo of a battle over development proposed in the Wilderness battlefield area.
The newly formed Wilderness Battlefield Coalition has informed Wal-Mart that it opposes its plan to build a 142,000-square-foot Supercenter near State Routes 3 and 20. On Wednesday, the trust e-mailed a "Take Action!" bulletin to its 20,000-plus activists and friends, urging them to write Wal-Mart President and CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. and express their views.
"This is just the wrong project at the wrong place at the wrong time," Civil War Preservation Trust spokesman Jim Campi said yesterday. "This kind of commercial development is absolutely incompatible with a battlefield park.
"Our principal concern is that this will create a mushroom effect and development is going to explode in that very sensitive Route 3 and Route 20 region, if this is allowed to proceed."
The nonprofit trust, headquartered in Washington, has joined forces with the Piedmont Environmental Council, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield, and the Friends of the Fredericksburg Area Battlefields to create the coalition.
Wal-Mart proposes to build a 141,487-square-foot store on about 15 acres of a 50-acre tract just north of Route 3, according to local officials. The parcel extends from Wilderness Run at the Spotsylvania County line toward Vaucluse Road, wrapping around a 7-Eleven, a Wachovia Bank branch and the Wilderness Center strip mall.
Another group has proposed a 1.65 million-square-foot retail, office and government complex, named Wilderness Crossing, on 846 acres adjacent to the planned Wal-Mart site.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Kelly Hobbs confirmed yesterday afternoon that the world's largest company intends to build on the smaller site in concert with developer JDC Ventures of Vienna.
"Wal-Mart is continuing our due diligence, and hopes to submit an application to the county within the next few weeks," Hobbs said. "We've been working with county staff for some months on design criteria in hopes our project will be consistent with the look and feel of Orange County."
The tract is within a quarter mile of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. It's on ground where some of the Battle of the Wilderness was fought on May 5-6, 1864, but is not within the boundary Congress authorized for the park.
Park Superintendent Russ Smith said the issue is not one of the store's design, but of land use. "It's not appropriate to put a massive development like that right next to a national park," Smith said he told Wal-Mart officials and its attorney in a meeting earlier this summer about the project.
"We would hope that Wal-Mart will consider other locations, both on aesthetic grounds, because of the way a Wal-Mart would change the character of the area, and because of the traffic that would be generated."
JDC's site plan calls for a Wal-Mart Supercenter and four other pad sites large enough for "junior big boxes," Smith said. Such a cluster of large stores could completely alter the setting of the Wilderness battlefield, he said.
The battlefield, only part of which is protected by the Park Service, draws some 170,000 visitors annually and is the largest tourism destination in Orange County.
Hobbs dodged a question as to whether the Arkansas-based retailer would consider sites other than the JDC Ventures property. Under the county's recently adopted big-box ordinance, the developer must obtain a special-use permit.
As to the concerns expressed by the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, Hobbs noted the property has been zoned for commercial development for more than 20 years and is in the Route 3 "growth corridor" that Orange has designated for economic development.
"We certainly respect their mission to preserve the battlefield, but feel our project--in a commercially zoned area--will be the best fit possible for the local economy, while keeping the historical interests in mind," she said of the coalition.
Hobbs said Wal-Mart officials look forward to meeting with Park Service officials, as well as coalition leaders and area residents, as soon as its plans for its store are complete.
civilwar.org/walmart08 walmart.com nps.gov/frsp
Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com
History snapshot
The Battle of the Wilderness, one of the Civil War's largest and most important conflicts, was the first clash between Gens. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. The battle began Grant's grueling Overland Campaign, which drained both armies and eventually brought Union troops to the gates of Richmond. More than 160,000 men fought in the two-day struggle along the Orange Turnpike (modern State Route 20) and the Orange Plank Road. Nearly 29,000 Americans were killed, wounded or captured in the fighting at The Wilderness.
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