Monday, November 9, 2015

County kills Ball Park Walmart plan

A proposed plan to build a Walmart Neighborhood Market on a piece of Nicholas Ball Park is dead after Knox County withdrew its request to rezone a portion of the land.

The county, under the plan would, swap an 8-acre piece of the park in exchange for a 100-acre piece of land in Hardin Valley. Gusto Development would then need the property rezoned from agricultural to general business.

That’s not going to happen.

“We’re just not going to do that – we’re not to swap it,” said Knox County Communications Director Michael Grider. “It was pretty clear the Ball Camp community wasn’t interested in moving forward.”

The Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission was set to talk about the proposal this month, but officials agreed to postpone the discussion until early next year as they sought more input from the West Knox County neighborhoods.

Instead, the county withdrew its petition to the MPC on Thursday, Grider said.

The plan would have cut out two of Ball Park’s soccer fields and a parking area.

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