St. Charles reaches deal for site formerly targeted for Super Wal-Mart

An outcry by hundreds of residents who live near Charlestowne Mall torpedoed plans to bring a Wal-Mart Supercenter that would've had them living in the retail giant's shadow in 2007. But there was one segment of the back-and-forth dispute left unsettled until this week.

St. Charles filed an eminent domain lawsuit against the property owners in the middle of the debate to take about 3 acres of the site for the construction of a street connecting Foxfield Drive and Smith Road. That lawsuit will be dropped this week in favor of an overall agreement between the city and the property owners about general guidelines for what can't and can't be built on the 30-acre site.

The site, located south of Foxfield Drive and north of Charlestowne Mall, will be divided into three lots. The lot closest to most of the existing residential area will be about 10.7 acres and stay reserved for the creation of more residential area, most likely apartments.

The remaining two lots, about 18 acres total, are designated for commercial and office use with certain limits to blunt the impact on the nearby residential areas. For instance, there will be no business or office that stays open 24 hours a day and no building can be any taller than 40 feet. There will also be a 40-foot landscape buffer planted along the north property line to provide a further buffer from the residential area.

There are also some traffic mitigation measures built into the proposal, such as a future extension of Charter One Avenue and no curb cuts will be allowed onto Foxfield Drive to prevent traffic from the commercial sites to flow onto that street.

Even though the agreement is in place, no actual development projects have been agreed to. All such projects must move through the normal planning and permitting process.

"Through this agreement, not only is future development defined, but impact will be minimized for the benefit of neighboring residential areas," Mayor Don DeWitte said in a written statement. "In addition, it will allow the city to acquire the necessary right-of-way and provide construction of the new road at no cost to the taxpayers."