While not ruling out the possibility of Wal-Mart coming to Westbrook, the owner of the property the retail giant was eyeing for a proposed store is looking for new buyers.
Saunders Brothers, which has moved its operations to Locke Mills, has dropped the asking price for its former Westbrook dowel mill from $4.9 million to $3.5 million.
Josh Saunders, president of Saunders Brothers, said last week the company has lowered the price hoping to attract other buyers that might not have the capital resources of Wal-Mart.
Saunders has been working with Wal-Mart in an effort to sell the 27-acre property for over three years. While the two parties have never entered into a signed agreement over the property, Wal-Mart had an informal option on the property that expired several months ago, said Saunders.
When the option expired and discussions with Wal-Mart had lagged for almost a year, Saunders decided to start shopping the property around. After looking into other buyers, Saunders said he realized that not every potential buyer would be interested in the $4.9 million asking price and, as a result, lowered it about two weeks ago.
Saunders said he still hasn’t ruled Wal-Mart out as a possible buyer, but he didn’t want to keep the property off the active market while talks with Wal-Mart were stalled.
“If Wal-Mart came in tomorrow and said they wanted to buy the property, we’d certainly talk to them,” said Saunders.
In the meantime, though, he said he didn’t want Wal-Mart to be the only option. In fact, he said, he’s had some interest in the property from other potential buyers.
“We’ve had a couple of interested parties,” he said.
Dan Greenstein, vice president of CB Richard Ellis/The Boulos Co., who is listed as the agent for the property, said he is soliciting other retailers as potential buyers, as well as buyers who might want to purchase the property as a land bank to sit on and decide how to use at a later date.
For its part, Wal-Mart has remained quiet on the potential purchase of the property. Spokesman Chris Buchanan said this week that the company has no plans for the site at the moment. “We continue to weigh our options,” said Buchanan.
Any redevelopment of the site would have to conform to restrictions placed on it in August 2005 by the Westbrook City Council, and would also be subject to any ruling in a lawsuit pending over a 2004 rezoning of the site by the council.
The lawsuit was filed by Westbrook Our Home, a neighborhood group formed to fight the coming of Wal-Mart, against the city of Westbrook. According to City Administrator Jerre Bryant, a court date was scheduled for early this year, but has been pushed back to March or April. Saunders said the pending lawsuit hasn’t affected his efforts to find new buyers, although the new buyers are certainly aware of the suit.
The future of the proposed Wal-Mart was cast in doubt in August 2005 when the Westbrook City Council voted to cap the size of retail projects in the so-called gateway zone at 160,000 square feet. The gateway zone pertains to much of the land around the city’s two turnpike exits.
In 2004, the council had voted to change the zoning of the site from industrial to gateway, which cleared the way for Wal-Mart to build a store. The company subsequently proposed a 203,000-square-foot Supercenter on the site.
However, at the urging of Westbrook Our Home, the council decided to place restrictions on the site that caused Wal-Mart to balk at building the store. This zone change is also the basis for the lawsuit, with the group questioning the legality of the change and seeking a reversal.
In addition to a size limitation, the restrictions passed by the council also contained provisions for increased buffering for the surrounding neighborhood and controls on lighting and hours of operation and delivery.
Bryant said Thursday that the restrictions would have, in addition to limiting the size of the store, forced Wal-Mart to put its loading docks in the front of the store to keep them away from abutting houses in the rear of the store.
“I think it’s going to be very challenging to get a good use out of that property,” Bryant said.
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