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- Category: Past Issues
Walmart
going for
wetland OK
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM --- Having tucked an OK for reduced-size parking spaces under its belt, Walmart goes before the Inland Wetland Commission Nov. 10 looking for approvals to expand its Rt. 44 store and rework the entrance and parking lot layout.
The 7 p.m. hearing at the Middle School centers on a request by Walmart Stores East, LP, to expand its current building from 99,142 square feet to 149,498. The expansion includes a building expansion of 46,856 square feet and a garden center totaling 3,500 square feet, according to plans filed at the Town Hall.
According to the plans, the building would be bumped out along the entire front side of the current building and then wrap around the existing building where the garden center is now. The Garden Center would move to the left front corner of the building. Plans show that the garden center would have heat, but not airconditioning.
Walmart said in order to accomplish the expansion and additional parking, the site and driveways would be reconfigured and that would put work in the wetland area of the Little Dam Tavern Brook. It would also require modifications to the stormwater treatment system, including the reduction in size of the existing water retention pond. The current entry, that snakes down the hill from Rt. 44, would disappear and the new entry is shown coming in directly across from the I-395 north exit ramp. It would pass between the brook and the reduced-sized pond. The Shell fuel station property is unaffected. The new entry/exit to the Walmart property shows a left turn lane and a right turn lane from Walmart's property out onto Rt. 44 and a single lane entering.
The plans also show plantings including pin oaks, arborvitae, honey locust, staghorn sumac and paperbark maples, in addition to various bushes and flowers.