Anchorage Daily News

Love it or hate it, Wal-Mart now has permission to build a new supercenter and a Sam's Club in Muldoon.

The city planning commission on Monday Oapproved plans for the company to put the stores along DeBarr Road, just west of Fred Meyer. Construction is expected to begin next year.

The decision wasn't easy, considering neighbors' worries about the size of project, said commissioner Nancy Pease.

Pease added a requirement that Wal-Mart include more landscaping in the store parking lots. Still, she said, the design is a step in the right direction for big retail development in the city.

It's also been a long time coming.

Monday's vote follows roughly two years of public debate over whether Wal-Mart should be able to build in the area, and what its stores, parking lot and driveways might look like.

The plan has some neighbors excited about new jobs and shopping and others disappointed to see the controversial retailer building big box stores in their backyard, said Peggy Robinson, the local community council president.

The planning commission initially voted against the project by denying a re-zone request, said vice chairman Art Isham. But the company appealed, and in October the Anchorage Assembly approved the re-zone.

When Wal-Mart later unveiled a more detailed plan for its stores, critics cried foul. The stores were bigger than neighbors expected and an access road had been straightened at the request of the city, reducing the buffer between the road and nearby housing.

Robinson said Wal-Mart has since returned to its original plan for the street. As for the size of the stores, she said the size of the Sam's Club had been increased to make room to handle more orders from rural Alaska, while the supercenter's footprint grew because a garden center was now going to be considered part of the square footage.

The 228,000 square foot supercenter will include a tire and lube center and garden center. The Sam's Club will be 149,000 square feet.

The project will also mean two new traffic lights along DeBarr Road -- at Patterson and Creekside streets -- according to a planning department report on the project. Wal-Mart is expected to pay for the Patterson Street light, while the city would pay for the Creekside light, the report says.

Even though the Assembly approved the re-zone, the planning commission had to do a "big box review" and sign off on the stores' design, landscaping, parking and roads before Wal-Mart could build.

Find Kyle Hopkins online at adn.com/contact/khopkins