Supervisors OK Wal-Mart near battlefield in Orange

ORANGE -- The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted early this morning in favor of a Wal-Mart store, plans for which had unleashed a chorus of criticism from preservationists.

On a 4-1 vote taken shortly before 1 a.m., the board approved a special-use permit that will allow the retailer to build a 130,000-square-foot store on a site near the historic Civil War Wilderness Battlefield.

Supervisors R. Mark Johnson, Zack Burkett, Teel Goodwin and Lee Frame voted yes; Teri L. Pace voted no.

If plans proceed, the store could be open by Christmas 2010.

"Speaker after speaker tonight who was against Wal-Mart seemed to think we got the idea we wanted a Wal-Mart, so we called Bentonville, Arkansas, and ordered a Supercenter and said, 'Deliver it to the Wilderness Battlefield,'" Johnson said earlier during the public hearing.

"That's not the way it works. This was a private deal between a private landowner and private business. When they came to us, they were owed a due-diligence answer from us."

He chided those who suggested an alternative site for the store.

"That's not our role," Johnson said.

"How would you like it if you came up and said, 'I have a business idea,' and we said, 'We want that business, but not from you. We're going to give it to your neighbor'?"

"Those of you who accuse us of rushing into something, well, this has been going for two years," Johnson added. "This certainly has been a long process."

About 400 people crowded the Orange County High School Auditorium for the hearing on the issue, and more than 100 speakers took turns at the microphone to express their views last night.

Most of the 84 local residents who spoke favored the store, and those who were opposed objected more to the location than to the retailer itself.

The 20 speakers from outside the county predominantly opposed the store, but they, too, objected to location more than to Wal-Mart itself.

About 100 people stuck around to hear the vote this morning and applauded the outcome.

Wal-Mart needed a special-use permit allowing it to build near the intersection of state Routes 3 and 20.

The site is across the street from a sign that welcomes visitors to the Wilderness, the battlefield where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant squared off for the first time.

Last Thursday, after its own public hearing, the county's Planning Commission voted 4-4 on the issue, which counted as a negative recommendation to the supervisors.

The application attracted national attention because of its proposed location near the battlefield. Movie star Robert Duvall, who lives nearby, led an early charge against the store but did not appear last night.

"I think it will bring the property to its highest and best use," said Gary Teates, a self-employed arborist who has lived near the intersection for 20 years.

"If Wal-Mart doesn't do it, somebody else will. Somebody could come in and bulldoze the whole site," he said at the hearing.

He applauded Wal-Mart's promise to set aside a third of its 50-plus-acre site as a conservation easement and to build the store nearly a quarter-mile off the road.

Among opponents, one man warned that Wal-Mart may win the battle but lose the war. "If they build here, they will lose customers nationally," he said.

"This site is significant," he said. "But through a coincidence of history, it's also the site of one of the more significant battles of the Civil War."

The Union and the Confederacy suffered 29,000 casualties during particularly brutal fighting at the site on May 5-6, 1864.

Russ Smith, superintendent of the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park and a regular at the county's public hearings on the store, again implored the supervisors to keep the area as it is.

Last night, an occasional speaker elicited catcalls, cheers and laughter from the audience, but on the whole the crowd was well-mannered.

The site has been zoned for commercial use since the 1970s, but this includes a size cap on individual buildings that is less than half the 130,000 square feet that Wal-Mart plans.

The intersection has a scattering of retail stores, a gas station and a bank. It lies about halfway between Wal-Marts in Culpeper and Spotsylvania counties.

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or zreid@timesdispatch.com.