Wal-Mart to Seek Approval for Super Center

COURT HOUSE – Middle Township Planning Board is scheduled to review plans and possibly grant preliminary site plan approval Jan. 14 at 7:30 p.m. for a Wal-Mart Super Center in Rio Grande. An enlarged grocery component of some 41,459-square feet, would result from a renovation of the former Fashion Bug store at 3159 Route 9 South, adjoining the present store to the north.
Legal advertisement of the hearing appeared in the Herald Jan. 1 edition. Plans are available for public review Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Middle Township Planning and Zoning Office, South Boyd Street, Court House. The board meeting is open to the public at 33 Mechanic St., accessible by the South Boyd Street entrance.
Aside from addition of the supermarket, other renovations are planned including modification of the garden section, a redefined parking lot, redesign of the present drainage “catch basin” and entrance and exit to the lot.
All existing businesses in the adjacent shopping center would not be affected, and will remain open through construction, according to the plan, which was drawn by Bohler Engineering of Warren.
Representing Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust in connection with the matter is Stephen R. Nehmad of Nehmad Perillo and Davis PC. Nehmad has represented Wal-Mart in its previous matters before Middle Township officials.
Due to the renovation and reconfiguration, the project is to provide 883 parking spaces, an increase of 47 over the present 835, according to McMahon Associates, Inc. of Yardville, transportation engineers and planners.
A Nov. 22 letter, provided by McMahon in the packet of documents supplied to the planning office, regarding parking conducted on Labor Day weekend, September 2011, noted, “Based on the data collected, the peak number of occupied parking spaces occurred on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. with a total of 405 parking spaces occurred out of the total 835 existing spaces… an occupancy rate of approximately 48 percent. “It also stated the peak number of parking spaces on Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. was 351, or 42 percent occupancy.
Based upon its calculations, McMahon projected the new shopping center’s peak summertime load would be 388 spaces, and on Saturday midday in summer, 448 total spaces, or 51 percent.
Those figures for 883 proposed parking spaces were supplied to support Wal-Mart’s request for a variance from the required 1,004 parking spaces.
Mark A. Roth, McMahon’s senior project manager, in a Nov. 25 letter to Greg DiBona of Bohler Engineering, “The analysis results also indicate that additional vehicle volumes at the signalized intersection of Route 9 and Satt Boulevard has minimal to no impact on the operations of the signal or the traffic flow operations along Route 9. Therefore, we conclude that the proposed 20,147-square-foot expansion to the existing Wal-Mart shopping center will have no adverse impact on the traffic operations of the site access driveways or the adjacent signalized intersection along Route 9 and Satt Boulevard.”
Perry M. Petrillo Architects of Park Ridge are overseeing that phase of the project.
The existing site is 19.668 acres, no variances are being sought for area, frontage or lot widths, since all exceed the minimum.
Additional variances will be sought for size and number of signs.
Previous to the latest application, Wal-Mart sought, and finally secured approval from the board for a 1,497-square-foot outdoor sales area Sept. 22, 2011.
Owner of the property is Grande Properties Development, LLC. The verification of application was signed by Thomas E. Juliano, member, Oct. 28, 2913.