Tonight, two Salt Lake City councilmen will meet with residents and business owners in Sugar House to hear what they have to say about Wal-Mart's petition to re-zone the K-Mart site at the mouth of Parley's Way.

"We're providing this forum to listen to what our constituents have to say, and they'll actually have an opportunity to talk to some of the experts within the planning department on the realities of the petition," said Sixth District Councilman J.T. Martin.

Martin represents the northeastern part of Sugar House and owns the Emigration Market at 17th East and 13th South. He'll be joined at the meeting by Soren Simonsen, who represents District Seven, where the Wal-Mart will be built.

If approved, the re-zoning would allow Wal-Mart to add a grocery store in the center. But Martin says he is not concerned about how the decision will affect his own business one way or the other.

"We're such different businesses, and someone would really have to be stretched to feel that I had a conflict," he said. "It means nothing to me. We run very different types of businesses. What I do doesn't affect them; what they do does not affect me."

Tonight's meeting is from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Dilworth Elementary School. Wal-Mart will still be able to move into K-Mart's existing building if the city council rejects the re-zoning petition, but could not build a new structure. To read Wal-Mart's take on the re-zoning petition, visit www.walmartutah.com. 

For more information on this topic or related issues you can search the thousands of archived articles on the OCA website using keywords:

Become an OCA Member! Sign up below: