Walmart Responds To Rumor

A rumor has been floating around that Walmart has been bidding out work to contractors and suppliers for a store in Caledonia.

However, the rumor is false, said Lisa Nelson, a corporate affairs official from Walmart.

“Those rumors may be stemming from other projects we have going on in the Metro Milwaukee area,” Nelson said.

While the company is still interested in coming to Caledonia, the have not presented any plans to the Village. Nelson said they are waiting to see if the land use plan will change for the Highway 31 and Four Mile site, which they’ve expressed an interest in building an 115,000 square-foot store.

The property is currently zoned residential and would require the property to have a commercial zoning designation. However, the land use plan would need to be amended first and Ron Coutts, the Village President, just appointed a Land Use Plan Management Committee, which met for the first time on Tuesday.

“Right now it would be premature for us to make decision on that site,” Nelson said. “We heard a lot of input from neighbors. The village believes they need to revisit their plan and there’s going to be a lot more discussion at the neighborhood level.”

But Walmart’s real estate representative is looking at a lot of sites in Caledonia, Nelson said.

“We’re still in a ‘let’s wait and see’ mode. This may not be the best site for us,” Nelson said. “We heard from a lot of neighbors and it is import for the Village to work with those neighbors.”