Alachua approves Farmlands Commercial on 441 as resident confirms Walmart rumor

Land use changes for 46 acres of Farmlands Commercial’s over 200 acres of residential and commercial development planned along US Highway 441 are a go after the Alachua City Commission voted 3-2 in favor during a regular meeting on Monday.

A quasi-judicial hearing for Farmlands’ 182-acre rezoning counterpart to planned development, residential and commercial, was also on the agenda, but deferred to the July 27 commission meeting in the interest of not going past midnight.

Dozens of public commenters decried and supported the development with its hundreds of thousands of commercial square footage planned for Farmlands (near NW 188th Street) as the applicant aimed to address questions and concerns during Monday’s nearly six-hour meeting, which picked up where the June 8 meeting left off, since that one had also pushed midnight.

When it came time to vote for the land use changes from community commercial, low and moderate residential to moderate density residential, community commercial and commercial, Mayor Walter Welch passed the gavel before voting in favor, along with Vice Mayor Jennifer Ringersen and Commissioner Shirley Green Brown.

Commissioners Jackson Youmas and Jacob Fletcher voted in dissent.

Fletcher was the only commissioner who explained his vote, although Ringersen prepared a statement but chose not to read it. He said he voted no because he believed surrounding property values would decrease and traffic would increase. He called the linear pattern on the edge of the city illogical.

“The comments made by the applicant [are] predatory on our own fears as a commission; our fears that, if you don’t approve this development, something much worse will come there. The fear that if we don’t approve this development, we won’t have money. And I will not base my decisions on fear,” Fletcher said.

Clay Sweger of eda consultants and Gerry Dedenbach of NV5 represent the Farmlands property owned by JTFA LLC. The land is currently used mostly as a tree farm.

Rumors that Farmlands will bring a Walmart to Alachua have been confirmed by city staff, according to resident and retired lawyer Gary Pappas.

Pappas spoke on Monday as an affected party during the rezoning hearing because he lives across the street from Farmlands. He said Dedenbach’s client Rise Partners of Chattanooga, Tenn., conducted the development’s traffic study in October and had experience with developing Walmart’s in Florida.

The study said the development is anticipated to bring over 200 single-family detached homes, a 423,400-square-foot shopping center, a 345,000-square-foot main shopping center, over 78,000 square feet of retail, three sit-down restaurants, three fast-food restaurants with drive-thrus, one drive-thru coffee shop, a gas station and an auto center.

The shopping portion would be built out by 2028 and the residential by 2032.

When Fletcher asked if approving the land use changes guaranteed all the proposed building plans, the city’s land use attorney Patrice Boyes said land use changes are hollow unless the zoning was also implemented.

During the June 8 meeting, Pappas said staff told him Farmlands would include a Walmart.

“That giant big-box store in the middle of that shopping center is the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” he said. “On February 24, 2026, I had a meeting in this building with [planners] Mr. Carson Crockett and Mr. Bryan Thomas. I showed them that site plan. Mr. Thomas told me it was commonly known within City Hall that that big-box store was a Walmart.”

While presenting on Monday as an affected party, Pappas raised concerns that the karst geology of the land could harm groundwater and create sinkholes.

He brought his neighbor, Steve Lang, and hydrologist Stephen Boyes to the podium as expert testimony. Lang spoke about a sinkhole about as large as the commission chamber that opened on the Farmlands property, formerly owned by his aunt, in the 1970s.

Stephen Boyes echoed concerns about the karst geography of the area that he also testified about for a Tara April special exception permit denied by the Planning and Zoning Board in January.

Stephen Boyes said he was alarmed that maps of the property from the applicant failed to include the closed Northwest Landfill at the bottom of the site. He said putting stormwater basins near landfills posed risks and liabilities for groundwater.

“Don’t do it. It’s poking the sleeping bear,” Stephen Boyes said.

Dedenbach spent over half an hour aiming to address questions and concerns raised during the previous meeting, including traffic and environmental impacts. 

He said the proposed land use would be a better fit for the city’s comprehensive plan than the current one because it would use less water than the tree farm and discourage sprawl development.

He also said the traffic study prepared for Rise Partners revealed the average daily time at red lights would drop from 59.2 seconds to 58.9 seconds because more turn lanes would address capacity.

Dedenbach said the city should also consider the economic boost of the development ahead of the state’s vote on eliminating property taxes.

“Projections that came forward after the legislature voted to send this to the voters in November showed that Alachua might have a $2 to $3 million shortfall in its budget,” he said. “This project alone would have a $1.418 million total property tax increment before the sales tax.”

It’s been 20 years since Alachua received a formal proposal for a Walmart. The City Commission shut down the idea after residents sued the city over it.

Resident Madeline Rhyand said on Monday she remembered the proposal because she was part of the group that sued the city. She said Walmart executives at the time had claimed they had no interest in bringing Walmart into Alachua, similar to the ongoing rumors now with Farmlands.

She said if such a large development did come, it would ruin the city.

“I’m not recommending that we sue the city of Alachua again, although you will find my name on that lawsuit,” Rhyand said. “I really recommend that the city thinks before they vote to bring a large development like that into our community again.”