Staff Writer
rseaborn@pickenssentinel.com
CLEMSON - Facing a battle once fought and lost by Wal-Mart, developers and engineers representing Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse Stores presented plans Monday evening to build a more than 145,000 square foot store near a residential community that may be again gearing up to protect the neighborhood's sanctity.
Looking at commercially developing an 18-acre tract located near S.C.123 and Issaqueena Trail, developers told the almost 100 people filling Clemson City Hall's meeting room that city leaders first approached Lowe's in enticing the company to locate in the city.
"Lowe's expressed an interest after the City of Clemson first expressed an interest in Lowe's," said David Harner, vice-president of Paramount Development Corporation, in Myrtle Beach during the public hearing.
Del Kimbler, vice-chairman of the Clemson Planning Commission, said that the hearing was only to allow developers to present ideas for the development and for citizens to offer information that would assist in the development process.
"This is just to pass ideas between the community and developer," he said. "And I see a sizeable crowd here, larger than what we normally have.
"But if you are here to oppose this, I urge you to find something else to do," Kimble said.
Preliminary plans for the development included saving as many of the existing trees surrounding the property, letting them serve as buffer between the building and the roadway, as well as from the nearby homes, Harner said.
David Graffius, a project engineer with Greenville firm Gray Engineering Consultations, said that plans called for the area to have "dark sky lightening" which would focus light directly on the parking facility, allowing for little or no bleeding over into the community.
"This is an upgrade of your typical Lowe's store," Graffius said. "We will be using non-standard Lowe's colors and materials in the building, and we will break up the building with architectural components.
"When you are looking at a wall, it will be more than just a wall," he said.
Graffius said that the group plans to save as many trees as possible along U.S. 123, creating a dense buffer between the highway and business.
An 88-foot fall of the property would be corrected through landscaped tiers of about 13 foot each, he said.
The tract of land could accommodate over 170,000 square feet of retail business, with Lowe's looking at a 145,000 square foot building, including the open garden center, he said. Other businesses, including a bank, small shops and a restaurant, could locate in the outlying areas of the property, he said.
"We could have 12,000 square feet of individual shops, and a restaurant - either fast food or a sit-down restaurant," Graffius said. "They would also be built from an approved list of materials.
"Of course, we don't want everything to be monolithic, so there would be individuality, but within those approved building materials," he said.
A preliminary traffic study showed that a Lowe's center would have less impact on the surrounding community than that of other businesses, he said.
"We were very excited to see that traffic generated by Lowe's would be about one-half the amount of traffic brought in by other big box businesses," Graffius said.
The study showed that while Lowe's would bring in about 4,000 vehicles daily to an area, other large stores could bring in about 9,300 vehicles to a community, he said.
Kimbler said that this first public hearing is only a step in the company's attempt to locate in Clemson.
"Nothing is going to be decided tonight," he said. "This is just the beginning of a very long process."
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