Self-storage proposed for Walmart site
For the second time, a developer is looking to put storage units in former Walmart store
WOONSOCKET – Walmart has informed city officials it’s found a possible buyer for its empty Diamond Hill Road building who wants to convert the cavernous site into a self-storage facility.
But the Bentonville, Ark.based retail giant is asking the Zoning Board of Review for some help in bringing the transaction to fruition by extending a previously-issued permit allowing self-storage in the vacant department store.
Zoners voted 4-1 on March 28, 2016 to grant the special use permit to an Ohio investor, Ryan Finnegan, who planned on redeveloping about half the building – 60,000 square feet – as a climate-controlled self-storage facility with roughly 600 units. The other half was supposed to be an indoor trampoline park, a use that required no permit, but the whole deal later fell apart.
“We respectfully request to have that special use permit extended for one year,” Lina Brown, Walmart’s senior manager for real estate, said in a letter to Zoning Officer Carl Johnson. “We have another interested buyer with a selfstorage use and we wish to proceed with the transaction.”
Zoners are scheduled to take up the request at a meeting on April 10 in Harris Hall.
It’s unknown whether zoners will grant Walmart’s
request, but some city officials aren’t wild about plans for more self-storage units on Diamond Hill Road.
City Council President Daniel Gendron said the city should be setting the bar higher for the parcel, which sits on more than 18 acres of land. Walmart assembled the tract from several sources – about a third of it from the city – years ago, when it was planning to reinvent the existing site as a larger, 24-hour “supercenter.” The project never materialized because Walmart abandoned the building in 2011 to open a new store in North Smithfield’s Dowling Village.
“This is a prime location,” said Gendron. “I’m disappointed they’re turning to public self-storage. I think Woonsocket already has an ample supply.”
There’s some indication that Walmart’s request to zoners might be less than a slam dunk.
The timing is one issue board members are having trouble wrapping their arms around.
Special use permits are good for one year before they expire. Zoners voted to grant Finnegan’s request a year ago Tuesday.
Does that mean the special use permit is already expired and, if so, is it possible for zoners to simply grant an extension?
“It’s going to be a question that we’ll have to bring up to legal counsel,” said Zoning Board member Roland Michaud. “It’s going to be a matter of querying the lawyer.”
If zoners are allowed to extend the existing permit, Michaud said he thinks the entire building could be converted to self-storage – not just the smaller portion that Finnegan wanted to use. Based on the legal advice it received at the time from a former city solicitor, Michaud said zoners did not attach stipulations to their decision prohibiting the special use from being applied to the entire, 124,000-squarefoot store.
Michaud said “it is my impression they could use the whole building” for self-stor- age under the 2016 special use permit.
The zoning board has been getting legal advice from a recently hired assistant to City Solicitor John DeSimone – Peter Wasylyk of Providence. Neither could be reached for comment Wednesday.
Brown offered few details about the prospective suitor for the 1919 Diamond Hill Road Walmart or that individual’s specific plans for the building.
In her March 17 letter to the zoning officer, however, Brown made it clear that Walmart’s real estate department thinks it’s a good idea to keep the special use permit in place.
“We believe that the special use permit enhances the marketability of this property and makes it more attractive to future buyers,” she said.
Finnegan was one of several investors whose interest in the property had been made public since Walmart left the building idle in September 2011. Since his plans faltered, however, another entity proposed a trampoline park in the former Shaw’s Supermarket in Walnut Hill Plaza – across the street from Walmart. Work on that facility is under way.
Earlier in Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt’s administration, a Massachusetts businessman expressed an interest in using Walmart for light assembly work, but he later opted for a site elsewhere.
More recently, word leaked out that a Texas shrimp farmer was looking at the site to expand his indoor aquaculture business.
Walmart’s closure was part of a wave of retail contraction on Diamond Hill Road and it remains the most significant vacancy on the commercial strip. Lately, however, sign of new retail life are popping up in the area, including a Popeyes Louisiana Chicken franchise. The grand opening of a new Brick House Pub is slated for Friday and the first Ollie’s Bargain Outlet in Rhode Island is due to open in Diamond Hill Plaza on April 5.
But there have also been some setbacks, including the loss of Sears, an anchor of Walnut Hill Plaza since the 1960s and, more recently, the closure of the New China Super Buffet, a longtime fixture of Diamond Hill Plaza.
Another staple of the commercial zone – Radio Shack – announced that it will close the store soon. Radio Shack’s parent company is in bankruptcy and plans on closing more than 500 stores nationwide this year. The store isn’t on any current list of impending store closures distributed by the company, but local workers say they’ve been advised the store is closing and have initiated a liquidation sale.