Panel votes against zoning change, 6-2

Denies Conway Kroger expansion

— The Conway Planning Commission recommended Monday night that the City Council deny a zoning-change request that would allow a major Kroger grocery expansion on the city’s west side.

The vote to deny the proposal was 6-2 and came moments after a 5-3 vote. The 10-member panel needed six votes to pass the motion; one commissioner was absent, and the chairman votes only in a tie.

The chief opponent turned out to be neighborhood residents, not preservationists who had earlier feared the supermarket’s expansion would mean the destruction of a historic Silas Owens Sr. house nearby.

Marianne Smith Welch, president of the Old Conway Preservation Society, said the group was withdrawing its opposition because the property’s owner, Whisenhunt Investments, has offered to try to save the historic house by helping move it. Welch, however, urged commissioners to impose appropriate conditions if they approved the project.

Whisenhunt Investments has agreed to donate the mixed-masonry Silas Owens house built in 1946 and $40,000 in cash to move it, said Jim Hathaway, who spoke on behalf of the proposal advanced by Kroger and Whisenhunt.

“We’re in a discussion with one possible recipient,” he said.

Still, several neighbors who live near the store at Prince and Salem streets said they feared the proposed 123,000-foot store would be a 24-hour operation even though a Kroger representative said the operation hours remain undecided.

The result, neighbors said, would be delivery trucks arriving and blaring horns at all hours, bright lights at night, increased security problems and thousands of more cars in an already busy area.

Hathaway said he will appeal the denial to the City Council when it meets Monday night.

Hathaway said the proposed $14 million expansion would include a gasoline service area and a drive through pharmacy. The project, he said, would mean an additional 59 full-time employees and 140 more part time workers.

The Planning Commission did not take up the separate fuel-center proposal.

Hathaway said construction plans call for evergreen tree buffers that would be at least 8 feet tall when planted. Further, he said, plans call for a 6-foot opaque wooden fence between the store and residential property.

But Gene Bartley, who said he and his wife Jan live directly behind the store, said, “There is no way to properly buffer an operation that is going to be that big.”

The plans would put “the air-conditioning units right on my windows,” Bartley said.

Resident Tom Powers said neighbors also are worried about their property values. Kroger’s proposal basically amounts to “a Wal-Mart supercenter,” he said. And the loading dock would be within 100 feet of homes, he said.

Mike Berg, a real-estate businessman representing nearby car washes, said he favored the expansion because of concerns that Kroger might leave the area if the proposal failed.

That, in turn, would hurt neighboring businesses, Berg said, because “That store brings us business.”

Arkansas, Pages 7 on 09/21/2010

Upcoming Events