Ceres Walmart legal battle took years. Here’s how opposing sides feel about opening day
Twenty-year Ceres city government veteran Tom Westbrook doesn’t need to look up how long it’s taken for the new Ceres Walmart Supercenter to open. He just needs to look over at his now-14-year-old daughter.
The longtime former city planner and development director remembers when the big-box retail giant applied to build the Supercenter just off Highway 99 because his daughter was born the same week.
“I do have a constant reminder every day I go home,” said Westbrook, who also served as Ceres city manager before leaving for a job in his hometown of Red Bluff this summer. “She has been a constant reminder for me, but also a reminder that the project was still moving forward and was just taking its time. Now I have a daughter who is a freshman in high school and a brand new Walmart.”
The store at Mitchell and Service roads is scheduled to open Friday, evoking a range of reflections and expectations from people who supported and opposed the project.
After Walmart announced plans for the Supercenter in 2007, Westbrook said the project went through the environmental impact report and planning commission processes. The City Council unanimously approved the Supercenter in 2011, but then a group called Citizens for Ceres sued Walmart and the city, arguing the report violated the California Environmental Quality Act.
A Stanislaus Superior Court judge ruled in the project’s favor in 2014 and Citizens for Ceres filed an appeal that ultimately failed. The appeal process ended in 2016, the group’s lawyer Brett Jolley said, ending the five-year-long legal challenge. Walmart began construction in December 2020 after some road improvements for the new Mitchell Ranch Center the Supercenter anchors.
From talking to neighbors near and along Don Pedro Road, which borders the Supercenter’s northern side, Florence Cardenas said people who organized with Citizens for Ceres still have some concerns. They worry over increased traffic and hope Walmart maintains the center’s landscaping and cleanliness. But overall, the homeowner said she thinks speaking up at council meetings and collecting petition signatures made a difference.
“It actually looks better than what we were expecting,” Cardenas said. “We’re OK with it. Nobody is planning on protesting or picketing or anything like that.”
Cardenas loves the landscaping for the Supercenter, especially the vines on the walls. The group requested ivy to discourage graffiti and plants to reduce air pollution from trucks, Cardenas said. While many neighbors shopped at the existing Walmart just off Hatch Road, Cardenas said homeowners worried the Supercenter would lower their property values or draw problems to the area.
Overall, concerns over land use brought Citizens for Ceres together, said group spokesperson and Ceres resident Sherri Jacobson. The group believed the project did not fit the location and would harm the community, Jolley said. Some small-business owners opposed competition at the new location, for instance, and other residents took issue with environmental impacts.
“It’s unfortunate that (the Supercenter) is now the cornerstone of our retail as opposed to things that I think people care about,” Jacobson said. “Even though they have variety within their store, Ceres has always been about variety of small businesses. I think that’s maybe the only disappointment, and I think that’s true of not just myself but a lot of members.”
Both sides reflect on Ceres Walmart battle
Former City Council Member Bret Durossette, who voted to approve the project in 2011, said he remembers hearing concerns over the Supercenter hurting small businesses and grocery stores. When approving the project, Durossette said he prioritized tax revenue and how it can help pay for police and fire. The store was projected to annually generate about $327,000 in sales tax, The Bee reported in 2014.
Ceres residents might also be able to save money by shopping at the Supercenter, Durossette added. He did not expect the Supercenter would take more than a decade to open, however. When the council approved the project, more supporters attended the meeting than members of Citizens for Ceres, Durossette said.
“I think the group that opposed it were real passionate about what they believed in,” said Durossette, who went to high school with some Citizens for Ceres members. “As a council, we believed (approving) it was the right thing to do. And obviously here it is; it’s going to have a grand opening. It’s going to be great and it’s going to be good for Ceres.”
Yet the council shared at least one similar concern 10 years ago. As some opponents questioned what would happen to the Walmart off Hatch Road after the Supercenter opens, Durrossette said the council expressed concern over how closing the existing store would affect nearby businesses.
Citizens for Ceres did not want the corporation to create a vacant, neglected and abandoned 124,000-square-foot space off Hatch, Jolley said. Walmart subsequently proposed a reuse plan, Jolley said, which says it will try to sell or lease the vacant building within 18 months of vacating it. The plan also includes Walmart maintaining the property, said Jolley, who filed about 10 similar lawsuits against Walmart in cities such as Lodi, Sonora and Tracy.
“A reuse plan should have been provided during the very early stages of project review and included in the (environmental impact report) — rather than as an 11th-hour band-aid,” Jolley said in an email. “At this time of increased commercial vacancies in a post-COVID environment, it will be even more important that Walmart live up to these promises and that the city be vigilant in its enforcement of the terms of the plan.”
Although the courts approved the Supercenter, Jolley said Citizens for Ceres served as community and environmental watchdogs. Besides setting legal precedent through a 2013 court decision on land use entitlements, Jacobson said Citizens for Ceres made two major accomplishments.
First, they convinced Walmart to save two large sycamore trees on the property instead of cutting them down. Ceres and Walmart also agreed to prevent delivery trucks from driving down Don Pedro Road after 10 p.m. to reduce noise in the neighborhood, Jacobson said.
Jacobson declined to say how much the group spent on legal fees to challenge the project, but said it was worth it. Walmart paid for all lawyer costs on the defense side, said Ceres Community Development Director Christopher Hoem, because it was a condition of its permit from the city.
What Walmart means for Ceres now
Many businesses have waited to see the Supercenter open and draw customers to the Mitchell Ranch Center, Hoem said. Both the shopping center and the adjacent Ceres Gateway Center are now ready for new development, he added.
“I know that there’s a lot of interest, so I would anticipate that businesses will be lining up to come into both the Mitchell Ranch Center and Ceres Gateway Center very soon,” Hoem said.
A proposed diverging diamond interchange at Service Road and Highway 99 will also help shoppers get on and off the freeway, Hoem said. The city needs funding for the interchange improvement currently in the design phase. In the future, Hoem said, Ceres also plans to widen Service Road from Highway 99 down to Crows Landing, which will further improve mobility in the city’s southwest industrial area.
Hoem roughly estimated the Supercenter will increase the tax revenue Ceres receives from Walmart by 40% because the new store has an additional 63,000 square feet. He could not disclose the tax revenue estimates because of California Department of Tax and Fee Administration rules.
But given the store’s online order pickup infrastructure and freeway access, Hoem said the Supercenter will be a stronger economic driver than the old store, which sits two miles north on Mitchell and Hatch roads. Walmart will vacate the old site when the Supercenter opens. The city is working with Walmart to find a new tenant for the site per their agreement, Hoem said.
While working at the old location, Ceres Walmart store manager Alma Valadez said she did not hear anything negative about the Supercenter, which also generates more jobs. Walmart employed 225 people at the old store, but plans to have 450 associates work at the Supercenter, Valadez said. All of the employees are transferring to the new location.
“A lot of people are just excited to have this new big building with the actual grocery side of the business here, too,” Valadez said. “So they can have this as their one-stop shop store.”
Fourteen years after Walmart filed the application, shoppers will finally be able to enter the Supercenter on Friday. The next time former city planner Tom Westbrook visits Ceres, he plans to check it out.
“I think it’s quite an accomplishment, and the reason is because it did take reasonable effort and time,” Westbrook said. “This positions Ceres well to attract commercial retail and can really serve the community.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
