Wal-Mart expansion plan draws opposition.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

COTTAGE GROVE - Wal-Mart will present a "supersize me" request to the Cottage Grove Planning Commission this month, seeking zoning code changes allowing it to nearly double in size and add a full-service grocery department.

But the company will face fierce opposition from some city business owners and residents who say the retail giant already has taken too big a bite out of the local retail mix.

"I think we need to all work as a team, but Wal-Mart comes in and tries to put other people out of business," said Mary Koepfle, owner of Farmhand Feed and Home Store.

The company first filed its application nearly a year ago, but the public hearing will be Wal-Mart's first opportunity to present its case for altering the city's Commercial Tourist District rules so its 11-year-old store can become a "Supercenter" as large as 160,000 square feet. The hearing will be Jan. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the City Council Chamber, 400 Main St.

City Planning Director Amanda Ferguson said Tuesday that the application was delayed because Wal-Mart improperly sought design review approval and a sign variance along with the code changes. The latter request must be granted before the other two can be considered, she said. The code amendment hearing was further delayed when city planners twice rejected Wal-Mart's analysis of the proposed supercenter's traffic impact.

Ferguson said she has not written the report that will tell planning commission members whether the city planning staff recommends changing zone restrictions for the property just east of Interstate 5 along Row River Road. Those restrictions were created as conditions for the Cottage Grove City Council's March 1994 approval of the existing Wal-Mart store. They included stipulations that the store be no larger than 105,000 square feet, that it occupy only 12 acres of Wal-Mart's 18-acre site, and that it be set back from Row River Road, with the remaining 6 acres to be used for development of smaller businesses.

Wal-Mart now wants to pave the additional land all the way to Row River Road for parking.

Koepfle said she will be among the area residents opposing Wal-Mart's application, saying the company isn't a good neighbor as a retailer.

"My theory of doing business is to try to find your own niche, maybe playing off of someone else's, but not to crush them," she said. "When they first came here they must have really done their homework, going through town and seeing who was doing OK, because they put in horse feed and horse buckets. That's not the way to do business - to undercut or horn in on someone's speciality."

Al Schweitzer, owner of a menswear and work clothing store in downtown Cottage Grove, agreed. "They've hurt enough people," he said.

Jennifer Holder, public affairs director for Oregon, Washington and Alaska Wal-Mart stores, denied that the chain tries to run smaller competitors out of business.

"The allegation that we destroy small business is an urban myth propagated mainly by unions," she said, adding that the Wal-Mart "doesn't even carry horse feed."

"We are a retail magnet," she said, pointing to Lacey, Wash., a city similar in size to Cottage Grove. "We went in and now there's a Home Depot, a Costco, a Best Buy, and a Cabela's (outdoors store)."

Koepfle said she has seen horse feed in the Cottage Grove store, and one of her employees said the west Eugene Wal-Mart Supercenter also carries it - a fact confirmed in a call to the West 11th Avenue store.

Koepfle questioned whether most town residents agree with Holder's definition of success.

"If they put in the groceries, it will affect both Ray's (Food Place) and Safeway horribly," she said. "I don't want a strip mall along I-5 to be what attracts people to Cottage Grove. I would rather have people see things like the gardens at the Village Green, high-end, classy things."

High-end, however, is not the top quality on everyone's list of important retail traits.

"I think it would be great!" said Julie Vriesman of buying her family's groceries at Wal-Mart. The stay-at-home mother is expecting her third child. Shopping at Ray's on Tuesday night with 8-month-old Samantha and 5-year-old Matthew, she said she welcomed both "cheaper prices on groceries and the convenience" of one-stop shopping.

Pharmacist David Debysingh, owner of McCoy's Drug Store in downtown Cottage Grove, was more neutral.

"I don't really have a problem with a Wal-Mart superstore coming in," he said. "Their service is so lousy, people come back here in droves. We offer personal service and take care of people, and we stay busy."

Chamber of Commerce director Tim Flowerday said he could see both sides of the question.

"In a lot of ways it could be a benefit to the community, because a lot of our people are driving up to Springfield to go to WinCo to get cheaper food prices," he said. "There's some validity to the argument that dollars spent at Wal-Mart are going out of the community, but at the same time, it's better to have some kind of job here than have our people driving into Springfield. But I expect that the businesses most affected would be Safeway and Ray's Food Place."

Representatives of those grocery chains did not return calls Tuesday.

Wal-Mart endured a long application process before building its first Cottage Grove store in 1995, when city officials at first rejected the project, only to have more than 3,000 city residents revive it by signing a petition of support.