Commercial Real Estate Appraisers Denham Springs Louisiana Reports On Wal-Mart Buying Watson Site
Wal-Mart buys Watson site, By Alice Dowty With The Livingston Parish News Online
WATSON - Wal-Mart concluded four property purchases worth a total of $3.6 million on Jan. 15, giving the giant retailer over 33 contiguous acres on La. 16 north of Denham Springs, according to Pee Wee Day, M.A. Allen’s listing agent for the sellers.
Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center paid roughly $48,000 an acre for 200 acres just outside Walker last year. Wal-Mart paid over $108,565 per acre for about 33.16 acres in the Watson area.
The largest of Wal-Mart’s four recent land purchases involved 22 acres belonging to the Rutherford family. That tract sold for about $2.4 million, Day said.
Wal-Mart has not announced its construction schedule for the Watson Supercenter, but a preliminary plat for the 153,430-sq. ft. store and its drainage impact study were approved by the parish Planning Commission in May 2007.
If construction does not begin within the next four months, Wal-Mart will have to re-submit its preliminary plat because approval is only good for 12 months, according to parish ordinance.
Day said that as far as he could tell, all the important pre-construction requirements have been met, including wetlands permitting.
The Watson Wal-Mart should open about a year after construction begins, according to engineer Shae Guin, from the Duplantis Design Group PC, who presented the Wal-Mart plans to parish officials last May.
The Wal-Mart property is located at the intersection of La. 16 and Cane Market Road (La. 1019), near the northern end of the state’s $7.7 million highway widening project, now underway. The Department of Transportation and Development’s schedule calls for this widening of two miles of La. 16 to be completed by the end of 2008.
The preliminary site plan for Wal-Mart Store #4679, presented to the Planning Commission, showed the familiar rectangular building with two front entrances behind a parking lot with 770 spaces, and three access roads to La. 16.
Plans also showed three out-parcels for stand-alone stores or restaurants.
Behind the store, plans show a rear parking area, a freight delivery zone, a retention pond and a wooded buffer zone.
Planning Commissioners and Parish Councilmen had no objections to the plans last year, and Watson voters added another half-cent to the local school district sales tax, in hopes that Wal-Mart sales will help finance a new high school.
Wal-Mart has over 2,300 supercenters nationwide, each employing an average of 350 associates, according to the Wal-Mart website.
Other large companies are also interested in buying land around Denham Springs, but according to Day, some company representatives say actual construction might not start until the national economic outlook improves.
Commercial Real Estate Appraisers Denham Springs Louisiana
