[StBernard] St. Bernard officials see resolution of Wal-Mart impasse

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard officials see resolution of Wal-Mart impasse
by Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
Saturday February 28, 2009, 8:55 PM
St. Bernard Parish officials plan to move several trailers housing the
parish's temporary health center from the abandoned Wal-Mart parking lot to
a site across Judge Perez Drive, hoping to resolve a dilemma that has
prevented the large retailer from reopening in Chalmette. 



The Arlene and Joseph Meraux Charitable Foundation, a parish nonprofit
group, has offered to let the St. Bernard Health Center move to the parking
lot of the former Off-Track Betting Building, on the same tract of land that
could be the future site of a parish hospital. 

The plan is to start relocating the trailers by the end of March, but
there's still no certainty the move will bring about Wal-Mart's highly
anticipated return to the parish. 

Wal-Mart officials have shied away from public commitments to return, saying
the corporation can't make a decision because of safety and liability
concerns with the health center in the parking lot. Company spokesman Tice
White said that if the trailers are moved, it would give Wal-Mart the first
opportunity to bring in heavy machinery and explore the costs of repairing
damaged flooring and underground pipes. 

"If they are indeed moved, that will allow us to get in and make some
evaluations on the property," White said. "There is certain interest for us
there to provide the service, the merchandise to our customers, but until
those trailers are off of there, it really puts us at an impasse for how we
look at moving forward." 

The health center houses five full-time doctors and numerous part-time
specialists who see as many as 200 patients a day during the week. With no
parish hospital since Hurricane Katrina, the clinic is one of the few
options for medical care in St. Bernard. 

The parish government solicited proposals from contractors to move the two
double-wide trailers last month and expects to receive a slate of cost
estimates Tuesday. FEMA has pledged to pay to deactivate and move the
trailers, but the agency will not pay to reassemble them on the new site. 

The response from contractors this week will shed light on how much money
the parish might have to pay for the relocation. 

Parish President Craig Taffaro said he has nothing in writing from Wal-Mart
about reopening, but he said he hopes moving the trailers will resolve any
lingering concerns. 

"Their message to us until this point was that until the site was cleared,
they cannot move forward. Now we just have to convert that to a 'now that it
will be cleared, it will move forward,'¤" Taffaro said. "We're just hoping
that the delay to this point has not cost us the actual commitment by them."


Based on discussions with Wal-Mart in 2008, Taffaro had said he thought the
retailer would return by midyear. The parish has budgeted an additional
$500,000 in sales tax revenue for the second half of this year, dependent on
Wal-Mart's reopening. 

The parish's contractor request calls for the Wal-Mart site to be cleared by
March 31. 

Frank Folino, the health center administrator for the Franciscan
Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, which operates the clinic, said
medical services will not be interrupted during the move. The plan is to
move half of the trailers at one time and operate the clinic out of the
other half until the trailers at the new site are reconnected. 

"We're going to do the best we can to get the clinic to provide the service
we're currently providing; it just might be a little uncomfortable," Folino
said. "You take 22,000 square foot of stuff and put it into 11,000, it's
going to be obviously tighter, the waiting rooms might get a little more
crowded. If the average patient experience is 40 minutes, it may now be an
hour." 

Moving the trailers is more complicated than it might appear, Folino said,
because the trailers are partitioned into 26 different sections that will
have to be taken apart and reassembled in a specific way.