Surveyors seen working last week on property alongside North Main Street were there to help prepare the roadway for the possible opening of a Walmart store, said Atmore Mayor Jim Staff.
While Staff said the presence of the surveyors doesn’t necessarilly mean anything about the store’s future in Atmore, he did say the surveyors were there at the request of the Alabama Department of Transportation, which wants a turn lane added to the roadway if the retail giant decides to bring a 7,000-square-foot store to the area.
“It looks promising,” Staff said of what this means for the likelihood of Walmart coming to town. “I’m not saying that’s what’s happening. We’re all speculating at this point.”
Walmart officials are pushing for an “experimental store,” or “scaled down version of the normal facility” to be located on the lot between Atmore Realty and Oak Hill Cemetery on North Main Street, Staff said in a previous interview with The Atmore Advance.
Staff said his administration has taken steps to ensure the privacy and respectful setting at Oak Hill Cemetery is preserved, should Walmart choose to build next door. Those steps include asking for a six-foot masonry wall in-between the store site and the cemetery.