Appeals Court Won't Block Walmart Bid for a 'Supercenter' on Spencer St.

A state Appellate Court rejected a move by the owners of a nearby ShopRite supermarket to block Walmart’s bid to construct a large “supercenter” with a full line of groceries at the former site of K-Mart on Spencer Street, the Hartford Courant reported.

The decision doesn’t completely clear the way for Walmart to build the new store: Walmart still needs approval from the Office of State Traffic Administration because the 205 Spencer St. location is on a state road, Assistant Town Attorney John Sullivan said, according to the newspaper.

Manchester land-use boards had approved the 152,430-square-foot store, then Waverly Markets LLC, owners of the ShopRite at 214 Spencer St. filed a lawsuit and lost it in a state court before appealing it. The reasons for the denial were not given in a one-sentence notification the court recently sent to the Manchester Town Administrator’s Office, the newspaper reported.

Waverly Markets objected on grounds that the plans for the store — and the town’s approval of those plans with a special permit — inadequately addressed traffic problems on the site and in the neighborhood and how property values could be hurt.