By CLINT SCHEMMER
As they indicated earlier this week, preservationists fighting a Walmart in the Wilderness battlefield area aren't crying uncle.
Late yesterday afternoon, they fired off a letter to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s new CEO, Michael Duke, urging him to reconsider the location its regional executives chose for a Supercenter in eastern Orange County.
Wal-Mart and its real-estate partners--JDC Ventures of Vienna and 3 & 20 Limited Partnership of Burke--were granted a special-use permit for a 240,000-square-foot retail center Tuesday by the Orange County Board of Supervisors. The site is a quarter-mile from Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
Eight private groups, called the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, say the development and traffic it will bring will mar park visitors' experience and destroy scenic vistas.
Yesterday, the coalition wrote Duke asking him "in the strongest possible terms" to find another site that would "that would not be so damaging to the county's most-visited tourist attraction and one of the most important Civil War battlefields in the nation."
The coalition offered to collaborate with company and Orange County officials to pick a location farther from the battlefield that would suit the retailer's needs. It said it is open to endorsing a rezoning for a new site. "Our coalition has stated from the beginning that we would welcome a new Walmart to Orange County at a less historically sensitive location," the groups told Duke, "[We] would be willing to consider supporting a rezoning at a location farther from the battlefield, and are eager to work with the county and Wal-Mart to help identify an alternate location."
The groups urged Wal-Mart "to take advantage of the generous offer" that Gov. Tim Kaine and House Speaker Bill Howell made last month to provide state assistance toward selecting an alternate site. Wal-Mart's regional spokesman, Keith Morris, has previously said the Wilderness tract is the only Orange site that meets the corporation's requirements. "We are committed to our current site, which is zoned and master-planned specifically for the use we have proposed," Morris said yesterday.
In its letter to Duke, the coalition said the planned retail center anchored by Walmart "is nearly quadruple the existing development at the Route 3 and Route 20 intersection. "In addition, building on the battlefield and at the gateway to the national park would be incompatible with this unique and historic place," the letter said.
The May 1864 Battle of the Wilderness pitted 160,000 troops against one another in the first clash between generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Some 29,000 Americans were killed, wounded or captured in the two-day battle, which historians regard as a turning point in the war.
The letter was signed by the leaders of the Fredericksburg-based Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, Civil War Preservation Trust, Friends of Fredericksburg Area Battlefields, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, National Coalition for History, National Parks Conservation Association, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Piedmont Environmental Council, and Preservation Virginia. Copies were sent to Kaine, Howell, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, members of Virginia's congressional delegation, and others.
Rob Nieweg, director of the National Trust's Southern field office, said the coalition will keep pressing Wal-Mart to protect the battlefield and the park. "Wal-Mart is not obligated to build on the approved site simply because Orange County has given them a green light by approving the special-use permit. Big-box construction on this site would harm the battlefield and radically urbanize the gateway to the national park. Ultimately, the fate of this historic place is in Wal-Mart's hands."
Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com