It’s over.

Hercules reaches deal to buy Wal-Mart property
By Tom Lochner

Hercules has agreed to buy a 17 1/4-acre tract from Wal-Mart Stores, where the retail chain once planned to build a store over the protests of advocates of more pedestrian-oriented, New Urbanist planning.

The price, $13.85 million, appears to be somewhat lower than the “high teens” of millions that a broker working for Wal-Mart sought when he listed the parcel for sale late last year.

Mayor Joe Eddy McDonald announced the deal following a closed session of the Hercules City Council this week.

The agreement appears to end years of wrangling highlighted by the city’s unsuccessful attempt in 2006 to invoke eminent domain to acquire the parcel, known as Bayside Marketplace or Parcel C, situated along John Muir Parkway roughly midway between Interstate 80 and San Pablo Bay; a judge struck down the city’s gambit in 2007.

Wal-Mart originally wanted to build a store with more than 140,000 square feet. It later scaled down the plan to 99,000 square feet.

The city insisted that a 2003 development agreement with Wal-Mart’s predecessor in ownership, The Lewis Group, set a 64,000-square-foot limit for individual stores at Bayside Marketplace.

Hercules’ eminent domain action, intended to force Wal-Mart to sell the property to the city at the market rate, was based in part on a finding of economic “blight” that the city said resulted from Wal-Mart’s refusal to adhere to the 64,000-square-foot limit, leaving the property undeveloped.

Wal-Mart contended that 64,000 square feet was just a guideline, and that the governing figure was the 168,000 square feet of total space on Parcel C originally meant for an anchor store plus several smaller stores.

A judge ruled against Hercules on technical grounds, striking down a 2006 ordinance that extended the redevelopment agency’s eminent domain authority. The judge also challenged the finding of blight. Yet despite winning in court, Wal-Mart never filed another application in Hercules.

Company spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said in December that Hercules customers are already well served by Wal-Mart stores in Richmond and Martinez.

Resident Steve Kirby of Friends of Hercules, a leading opponent of Wal-Mart’s erstwhile plans to build on Parcel C, said Thursday that he is happy the council authorized a purchase of the tract.

“From the beginning, the city had a plan for this area,” Kirby said, “but the developer did not come in within that framework.”

By buying Parcel C, the city “can find developers and plan it just the way they want it, and make it fit in with the walkable, people-friendly community … and coordinate it better with New Town Center, Sycamore Crossing and the waterfront.”

City Manager Nelson Oliva said his staff “will begin to explore potential use options for the site over the next few months.”