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Wal-Mart Calls Halt To Tarpon Supercenter Plans

Tribune file photo by JAY NOLAN (2005)

Wal-Mart will hold onto the land and "monitor the environment in the Tarpon Springs area," a company spokeswoman says.

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By Mark  Schantz | The Suncoast News

Published: November 21, 2008

TARPON SPRINGS - Retail giant Wal-Mart has called a halt to its controversial plans to build one of its Supercenter retail complexes near the Anclote River.

Although Wal-Mart has shelved plans to build a store on the site off U.S. 19, it will hold onto the land and "monitor the environment in the Tarpon Springs area," Quenta Vettel, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said Friday.

As a result, Vettel said, Wal-Mart will not launch a legal challenge to the City Commission's decision last month. Officials determined the development plan, first approved in 2005, had lapsed and the project would have to be reviewed again by the city.

Concerned Citizens of Tarpon Springs, an environmental watchdog group, had urged the City Commission to declare the Wal-Mart development plan no longer valid. City Attorney James Yacavone had warned commissioners a judge likely would order the development plan reinstated.

Interim City Manager Mark LeCouris said Wal-Mart officials had called him Friday morning to inform him of the company's decision not to pursue development of the discount store-supermarket combo.

Forgoing construction of the store was a "corporation decision," LeCouris said the Wal-Mart officials told him.

It "could be years" before Wal-Mart might take another bid to develop the site, LeCouris said.

According to Vettel, Wal-Mart will "tie up lose strings" regarding its ownership of the land but has no plans to sell the property.

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