Lawrence Township - New Wal-mart plans March 2008

Wal-Mart officials recently announced that the company is pulling its plans to build a super store at 1060-1100 Spruce Street due to a change in the company's growth strategy. The decision came less than six months after obtaining the township Planning Board's approval to build a 143,233-square-foot store on the 23.5-acre property.

Last August, Wal-Mart was granted preliminary and final site plan approval by the Lawrence Township Planning Board, despite strong opposition from area residents worried that the new mega-store will increase crime, traffic, and cause storm-water run-off and other environmental hazards in the area. Several of these same concerns were raised again at the County Planning Meeting in November 2007, but the store gained its needed approvals nonetheless.

Recently a group of Lawrence, Ewing and Trenton residents-members of the LET's Stop Wal-Mart coalition-filed a lawsuit citing zoning problems and other issues with the proposed store hoping to derail the company's plans to move forward. Wal-Mart stated that their decision to back out of their plans was based solely on a changing business strategy.