Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/313059
"There will be no big improvements to the intersection," Wiggins said. "We don't have any funding in our budget — any additional funds — to do any construction at this intersection." Meanwhile, after the store opens, an average of 263 extra vehicles are expected to traverse the intersection each hour during peak traffic times, according to Wiggins. Walmart is responsible for providing access to the development, which includes adding a right turn lane on Bee Ridge Road so cars can enter the store parking lot. Another turn lane will be added on Beneva Road at a sec- ond entrance. Altogether, plans call for three entrances into the Walmart property, Wiggins said. A s e p a r a t e F l o r i d a D e p a r t m e n t o f Transportation-funded project is in the works to add pedestrian refuge islands to a 3.6-mile stretch of Bee Ridge Road, from U.S. 41 to Dunn Road near McIntosh Road. A TALE OF TWO WALMART PROPOSALS The County Commission may have approved the Bee Ridge Walmar t, but the City Commission turned down an earlier Walmart proposal to build a small Supercenter on Ringling Boulevard just outside down- town Sarasota. Tuttle, the community activist, said that although some residents of the area sur- rounding the Bee Ridge store site argued against the project, their opposition was not as well-organized as the protest involving the proposed Walmart on Ringling Boulevard. With the latter site, there was also a question about the legality of rezoning the property to make a big-box store permissible at the site — another concern that helped sway the city board. "There was a lot more community support" in the fight against the Ringling Walmart, noted Tuttle, who also helped organize that action. Tuttle added that he would have preferred to see something other than a Walmart replace River's Edge Church at 3560 Bee Ridge Road. The razing of the church and the removal of old oaks on the property is "hard to see," he said. % A panoramic view shows the River's Edge Community Church at the southwest intersection of Bee Ridge and Beneva roads in April 2013. Photo by Robert Hackney Sarasota News Leader May 16, 2014 Page 37