PORT ANGELES — The old Kmart building on U.S. Highway 101 east of town will be coming down, apparently to be replaced soon by a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
Rob Robertsen, Clallam County Community Development director, said Tuesday night that his department has received a demolition permit application for the vacant, 87,000-square-foot Kmart building.
The application was accompanied by an illustration of what a new Wal-Mart Supercenter would look like.
It showed a building that would be larger than the existing Wal-Mart store located across the highway and would include a supermarket and a drive-up pharmacy.
But the news about the demolition plans came too late Tuesday for the PDN to contact Wal-Mart Stores Inc. or to determine when demolition might start.
The old Fashion Bug building at the west end of the shopping center, separate from the former Kmart store, also is slated for demolition, Robertsen said.
Some “minor issues” must be resolved, he added, such as where the rubble will be hauled, but there should be no major obstacles to the demolition.
Last August Clallam County officials met with the site’s Kent-based owner, Michael Dunne, to discuss tearing down the Kmart building.
At that time development plans were revealed that showed a 203,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter at the site.
Wal-Mart officials have been close-mouthed about any construction plans, saying only that they were interested in possibly buying the old shopping center “to expand service to the our customers.”
In August, Eric Berger, Wal-Mart spokesman in Seattle, said that Wal-Mart was working with Dunne to examine the permitting requirements for a possible Wal-Mart Superstore after the Kmart building was torn down.
Berger said it usually took the company about 10 months to build a superstore once all the permits have been approved.
