Our Basic Reasons Why We Are Against Having a Wal-Mart in Southbridge

As residents of Southbridge, we are dead-set against it for the following reasons:

- Traffic is already congested on Route 1 already. Adding almost 10,000 cars a day without widening the road is a grave mistake, especially when accidents on I-95 south force more on Route 1 on many days. Currently, Virginia will not fund any expansion of Route 1 until at 2005.  Meanwhile, several more subdivisions are being built along the road which will add to the traffic already in addition to the 2500 new homes being built in Southbridge.

- The Wal-Mart is counter to the recent Urban Land Institute's study and recommendations to the County for the revitalization of historic Route 1.
 
- The residents of the Southbridge community of $300,000  - $500,000 homes now suffer because the County Planning Commission did not rezone the retail site from B-1 to B-2, Neighborhood Business District, which would have limited a retail business to not more than 30,000 square feet of space.  

- The Southbridge area already has several gas stations in the area. This includes stations from the following companies: Exxon, Mobil, Pumps, Chevron, Amoco, and Texaco. Never mind the stations up by the Holiday Inn Express, or Dumfries or the 7-11 store.

- There are already two major supermarkets (Giant and Food Lion) plus several convenience stores whose business would be hurt by the competition from Wal-Mart.

- There is already a Wal-Mart by Potomac Mills. If you drive by there on any given day, it looks trashy and unkempt. Just look at the photos below of the Store at Potomac Mills.  One of our neighbors took the pictures on a typical morning while he was walking around the store.  The same is true of the store in Kingstowne.  We do not want a store with such an appearance in front of Southbridge. Besides, if someone wants to go to Wal-Mart, there's already one nearby. We need a higher class of store.

- We do concede a need for good restaurants in the area. However, we do not believe that we need another McDonald's Express (the standard restaurant at Wal-Marts). There are already plenty of fast food on Route 1. We need more family restaurants and major non-fast food type restaurants.

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