Plans suggest North Town Mall demolition

Such plans have been on file with the city’s Building Development Services department since late February.

According to the plans, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer would raze the 280,000-square-foot North Town Mall, build a new Supercenter on the site and then raze the existing store to clear the way for a 37,000-square-foot addition on the Supercenter’s east side.

The estimated cost of the project is $6.2 million, according to permitting documents filed with the city.

A similar permit was filed with the city in 2004, but Wal-Mart never took further action.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman did not respond to Springfield Business Journal’s questions, but plans show the 187,000-square-foot Supercenter would include a garden center, automotive center, vision center and pharmacy. And like some of its counterparts, the Supercenter at North Glenstone Avenue and East Kearney Street would have an interior Subway restaurant, according to the plans.

Landscaping plans indicate that trees would be planted along the main North Town Mall entrance off of Kearney, which will remain the primary point of ingress and egress for Supercenter traffic.

The vacant bank building just south of Applebee’s at the northeast corner of Glenstone and Kearney also would be razed to make room for more parking spaces, according to the plans.

Additionally, an acre fronting Glenstone on the property’s west side has been identified as a future leasing area on the plans.

Wal-Mart has not announced a general contractor for the project, but BRR Architecture of Merriam, Kan., is the architect. Kansas City-based Johnson Burkholder Associates is the structural engineer, and Henderson Engineers Inc. has contracted with the retailer for mechanical, plumbing and electrical engineering services, according to the plans.

City Planning and Development Director Ralph Rognstad said the 25-acre tract Wal-Mart owns at Glenstone and Kearney is appropriately zoned highway commercial and the plans require no further approval from his department.

Nick Heatherly, director of the city’s Building Development Services department, said his staff has reviewed revised plans for the Supercenter and sent a letter to Wal-Mart with its comments.

“The ball’s in their court at this time,” Heatherly said.

Wal-Mart was the first store to open in North Town Mall, which turned 30 years old this year.

The last batch of mall tenants – USA Furniture, Another Comic Shop and a Subway franchise – all moved out within the last year.

The mall once housed a four-screen movie theater that shut down in August 1998, and Ozarks Technical Community College rented classroom space in the mall before leaving in 2000.