Brief by Central Staff
Wal-Mart – January 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Wal-Mart has backed away, at least for the time being, from plans to build a super store in Gunnison.
The store would have been on the north side of town, across Main Street from the current store, where the company had made on offer on a sizable parcel.
The company’s expansion plans inspired considerable activism in Gunnison, which provided political pressure on the city government to declare a moratorium on big-box developments until the city could develop standards.
Those standards were in draft form, and after Wal-Mart saw them, the company withdrew the offer on the land. The realty specialist working on Wal-Mart’s behalf, Cris Burton of Legend Retail Group, said that “If these new guidelines were enacted today as they are, it would double the cost of a new store. We projected a new store to cost about $4 million. These guidelines would almost double that.”
Although the guidelines have not taken effect, the resulting uncertainty made the company decide to back off.
Wal-Mart could resume expansion planning after the city’s moratorium expires, but that’s just speculation.
T.L. Livermore, president of the Gunnison Valley Community Alliance (an organization which came about last summer in response to Wal-Mart’s possible expansion), observed the city is considering a 500-acre annexation east of town. “Seems to me that the developers of that might be very interested in having some big box retail to anchor their commercial space. So I don’t think we can afford to stop studying this issue.”
