Wal-Mart has sights fixed on Canfield site

Sentiment against the
supercenter ran high
among residents.

BEAVER — Wal-Mart isn’t likely to throw Canfield over for Beaver Township, say a spokesman for the company and a Beaver trustee who briefly looked into whether it might.

Ron Mosby, Wal-Mart’s senior manager for public affairs, acknowledged this week that a site in Canfield is “the focus,” and that even though the company is not ready yet to reapply for a zone change, it is going to do so.

Wal-Mart representatives have already been before the Mahoning County Planning Commission and the township zoning commission to pitch a zone change from residential to business at a 28-acre site behind the old Harley Davidson store and Taco Bell on U.S. Route 224.

At a zoning commission meeting Nov. 1, residents crowded in to listen to Wal-Mart’s presentation. They weren’t permitted to speak, but anti-Wal-Mart sentiment appeared to be high. Officials said phones had been ringing at the city and township offices for days before the meeting, with residents protesting the idea of a supercenter in Canfield.

After the meeting, a ripple went through parts of the crowd: Beaver Township officials were there. They want Wal-Mart. Would anything come of that?

Ted Lyda, a township trustee, and Rick Martin, the township zoning inspector, were at the meeting, Lyda said.

“I don’t know if we’re interested in attracting them,” he said last week. “We have a parcel of land here we’d like to see something happen with.”

That land, he said, is hundreds of acres of “blight” — old truck stops on Route 7 near the turnpike.

He said he did approach Mosby after the meeting to tell him the township might be interested in Wal-Mart , but Mosby didn’t seem too impressed. Mosby acknowledged that last week, saying again that “the focus” is the Canfield site.

Lyda said Beaver Township would have a hard time attracting a business such as Wal-Mart anyway because Beaver doesn’t offer tax abatements and likely wouldn’t consider doing so.

Tax abatements allow businesses to use services such as police and fire without paying for them, he said. He said they also aren’t fair to schools, which could use the revenue.

He said the township, with a population of around 8,000, has attracted some business in the area. Pilot went in and restored a whole truck stop, he said, and a McDonald’s recently opened.

A Wal-Mart though, he said, doesn’t seem a likely possibility for Beaver.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is preparing another application for a zone change at the Canfield site.

It appeared that the planning commission was about to vote to recommend denying the zone change request in October, and Wal-Mart immediately withdrew its application.

The township zoning panel ended up telling the company to go back and start over with the county. Then, it said, the request could proceed to the township, where there would be an official public hearing.

“We know we’ll go back,” Mosby said. But the company is taking its time with the new application, he said.