National Trust for Historic Preservation, Park Advocates, and Local Residents File Legal Challenge to ‘Wilderness Wal-Mart’ Approval
by Guest Writer on September 23rd, 2009Written by Rob Nieweg
Today, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, local Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, and six individual residents of Orange and Spotsylvania counties in Virginia filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Orange County to challenge the local government’s August 2009 approval of a 240,000-square-foot big-box development that will harm the historic Wilderness Battlefield and encroach upon the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.
>> View the Official Announcement from the National Trust
The National Trust and its allies do not oppose economic growth in Orange County. In fact, we have offered to help Orange County plan for a sustainable balance of economic development and historic preservation at the gateway to the National Park.
However, if it’s built, the infamous “Wilderness Wal-Mart” project would quadruple commercial development at the intersection of Routes 3 and 20 and, thereby, compound earlier land-use planning errors at the gateway to the National Park. Inevitably, the project would open the door to more incompatible development, urbanize this vulnerable historic place, and undermine the visitor’s experience of the battlefield and National Park. Preservationists have made it clear that the consequences of Wal-Mart’s project will foreclose the National Park Service’s ability to properly preserve this nationally-significant site and to interpret critical events that changed the course of American history.
That’s why the National Trust and thousands of other concerned Americans have asked Wal-Mart to relocate its planned store to another site in Orange County but away from the battlefield and National Park.
Click here to view the official announcement, and please stay tuned to PreservationNation.org as we continue to monitor this important issue.
Rob Nieweg is the Director of the Southern Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
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