The Palm Coast Planning Board Wednesday evening recommended approval of building plans for a new Walmart Supercenter on State Road 100, just west of BJ’s Wholesale. It would be part of the largest single-new commercial development in the city’s history.
“Based on historical knowledge that I’m aware of, this is the single-biggest technical site plan that is coming to the city, over 240,000 square feet of non-residential,” Phong Nguyen, the city’s planning manager, told the board. The Promenade in Town Center is a 233,000-square-foot project, but only 64,000 square feet are retail. The rest are apartments.
The 5-0 recommendation goes to the City Council for approval. “I’m happy to see economic development with these three projects that came before us today,” Sandra Shank, the planning board chair, said, including two other commercial developments the board had approved earlier. “We’re looking forward to the economic development and additional services in the community to be able to relieve some of the stress on Palm Coast Parkway with that Walmart. That’s going to be great.”
Surprisingly, the addition of 20,000 car trips per day, adding to an already stressed road, raised no questions by the board members. Expected peak evening traffic would generate 1,722 new car trips an hour.
In gross terms–that is, in total traffic–Walmart alone is expected to add 9,372 car trips per day. When traffic from all other potential retail businesses that would occupy the shopping center is added, the figure rises to 19,304. In net terms (that is, when existing traffic is discounted, and only new traffic caused exclusively by the development, is calculated), the development would generate 1,172 additional cars at peak evening rush hour. (See the full impact here.) Currently, the city reports between 25,000 and 36,000 daily car trips on State Road 100 from Old Kings Road to Belle Terre Parkway.
“The primary anchor tenant is intended to be a Super Walmart,” Jay Livingston, the Palm Coast attorney representing the developer, said. “Just for what we’re asking for tonight, the total impact fees, including the public art contribution, will be $6.37 million.” Development impact fees are the one-time payments builders pay on new construction to defray the cost of the impact of new development on roads, fire services, water and sewer infrastructure. Commercial developments don’t pay school impact fees since they don’t generate students.
Livingston said Walmart will generate about 200 jobs. The construction phase will generate “hundreds” of jobs.
Senior Planner Michael Hanson briefed the Planning Board on the project. Walmart itself would occupy 185,492 square feet. That compares with the 178,420-square-foot Walmart on Cypress Point Parkway in the center of the city, built in 1997. That site sits on 24 acres. The new site totals 39 acres.
A 12-pump gas station would occupy over 16,000 square feet. There would also be an additional 55,172 square feet of retail space.
That doesn’t include additional retail space in “outparcels” that would apply for regulatory approval in the future. “So that 242,000 square feet ultimately might be larger once some of those out parcels come on board as well in the future,” Hanson said. New businesses might include a fast-food and a casual-dining restaurant, a bank, a car wash, a small office building and a veterinary clinic, according to projections used to calculate traffic intensity.
As it has developed into an intense commercial corridor, traffic on State Road 100 has been a recurring concern for the Planning Board, the City Council and the County Commission. One of the issues has been the absence of an access road off of State Road 100 that cuts through from BJ’s to RaceTrac. RaceTrac has refused to allow for such a cut-through. That won’t be the case for BJ’s and Walmart. “We’ll be able to carry everything from BJ’s eastern extent all the way to Airport Road, because we will tie those all together,” Livingston said. “Hopefully that will eventually open up to Seminole” Woods Boulevard.
Nguyen said the city is working on an appraisal of a 200-foot corridor connection to Seminole Woods. It will then negotiate with the property owners in plans to acquire the corridor. “The city has plans to basically connect from Seminole Woods all the way to Belle Terre. That’s our goal,” he said.
The City Council annexed the 39 acres of the future Walmart site in November 2025. The land is currently owned by Flagler Pines Properties (itself owned by Jay Gardner, the property appraiser), which had owned the land now occupied by the BJ’s shopping center and, further west, the Airport Commons strip mall. The developer and applicant is the Jacksonville-based Atlee Property Group through a subsidiary called Flagler Venture.
“It’s worth noting here the property owners planning to keep this entire property in their common ownership and essentially lease out the big box retailer space, the future retail tenant space, and the future phased out parcels,” Hanson said.
The project is so large that it will have its own, temporary sewer plant at the northwest corner of the property, abutting State Road 100, until Palm Coast’s capacity can accommodate the flow. Once it does, the sewer plant area will be converted to other uses.
“The idea there is it’s twofold: one, it’s to make sure that the significant investment this project will require won’t be held up by a capacity problem at Wastewater Treatment Plant 1,” Livingston said, referring to Palm Coast’s older sewer plant, currently under a state consent order after repeatedly going over capacity during storm events.
“But also to avoid this project putting any burden on that while the city goes to its expansion phase, so we can bring the economic development in without creating any adverse effects,” Livingston said. In January, the City Council approved a new bond and a total of $582 million in debt to finance vast improvements to the city’s water and sewer infrastructure.
“City staff worked with the applicant to include more architectural features to dress up the building,” Hanson said. (Walmart buildings, never known for their elegance, gave rise to the term “big-box store” in the 1980s.) So the facade will feature additional window treatments, blinds, cornices, additional parapets, “and ultimately further architectural features,” Hanson said.
For several years at the end of the first decade of the millennium Palm Coast thought it was getting a new Walmart on 31 acres off Old Kings Road near State Road 100, after Walmart bought the land for $5.9 million. The city rebuilt the segment of Old Kings Road south of Town Center Boulevard–and continues to bill property owners along that segment to pay for it–just to accommodate the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer in anticipation for a Supercenter there. It never came. Walmart still owns the land, paying $43,000 in property taxes last year, and an additional $13,800 for the road levy.
Last year the Cypress Point Walmart paid $150,000 in property taxes, $35,000 of it to Palm Coast. The newer shopping center is expected to be valued significantly more. For example, the BJ’s Wholesale shopping center was assessed at $11 million and paid around $191,000 in property taxes. But if voters approve a proposed amendment to the homestead tax and the cap on non-homesteaded assessments in November, tax revenue from the new property would diminish sharply.
Clearing has not begun on the property. The developer will be required to pay into the city’s tree fund for the removal of 782 shade trees with a 2.5-inch caliper diameter, at $625 per tree, and 81 shade trees at a three-inch caliper diameter, at $825 per tree.
After the technical site plan is approved, the applicant must secure a development permit, which allows for the underlying infrastructure. A building permit is next, which allows for construction. The technical site plan goes before the City Council in July.
SuQ says
This is just ridiculous. You can’t drive on 100 as it is without stopping at every light and sometimes waiting 2 lights to get through. Who is paying for the new sewer system and infrastructure? We need more gas stations??? With RaceTrac at the corner, BJ has gas pumps and now Walmart as well?? Is it just me who finds this awful?
Dan says
Another Walmart? I’d rather have a Sam’s Club so I didn’t have to drive to Ormond. Do they plan on converting the Walmart off Cyprus to Sam’s? If not, total missed opportunity.
Really Annoyed says
Walmart is nothing but a garbage store which will bring more crime to the area. We better put more sensible people on the council board who cannot visualize the traffic woes that this will create. They better start fixing our infrastructure before allowing these massive developments. Too much corruption as well!
R.S. says
Our local development continues into the wrong direction. We’d be much better off if smaller stores were to open locally such that traffic would be diminished, the environment would be less polluted, and the climate might get a chance at eventual cooling in a generation or two. We might also benefit from the exercise if we were to buy for daily needs at the small neighborhood store, which we could reach by a brisk walk. Our refrigerators might become smaller as we shop for daily needs locally. And the superrich might not benefit from the local shops. The market would become an ally in the process of closing the wealth gap. But we lemmings must run over the cliff! So it goes, and pass the bottle!
Michael John says
Ya, the Pols salivating over the taxes raised. Think about that as your sitting in traffic with a whiff
of air from the water treatment plant. This seems like poor planning? Cart before the horse planning as the money is driving the deal, not the best interests of citizens residing in the area.
blondee says
Look up the definition of “chaos”. This will be it!!!