Mount Pleasant Walmart Will be 'Best Looking Store' in SE Wisconsin

Despite strong opposition from local businesses and some residents, a Walmart Neighborhood Market will open in Mount Pleasant sometime in 2013.

The with a 5-1 vote. Only Trustee and commission member Jerry Garski dissented.

Walmart attorney Debbie Tomczyk admitted to the commission that because Mount Pleasant planning staff insisted on several elements not normally included in a Neighborhood Market, this store might be the best looking in all of Southeast Wisconsin.

"Your planning department sent us back to the drawing board so often it kind of became a joke," she said. "They were tough and they challenged us, but in the end, this might be the best looking store in the region."

Some points the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Market will include:

• Stone and brick facade with bump outs to break up the flat wall space;
• Four-sided architecture because the building is pushed up closer to Washington Avenue and parking is now in the back
• A third of the site is greenspace including required plantings of different sizes and heights along side and back foundation walls to soften the appearance; and
• All waste and service components are entirely enclosed so dumpsters and loading docks are not openly visible to customers and passersby.

The final landscaping plan has not yet been submitted, but Walmart representatives will continue to work with the village.

Deputy Planning Director Brennan Kane warned the Planning Commission that the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Market might not be a one-of-a-kind for long, though.

"This might not be the only super duper Walmart built because other communities have contacted us about the conditions set forth in the site plan," he said.

A timeline for construction has not yet been determined, but the new store could be open sometime next summer or fall.