Menards won’t build distribution facilities on Eau Claire wetlands

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Eau Claire (AP) – Home improvement retailer Menards has decided to build manufacturing
and distribution centers in Iowa and Ohio, resolving a longtime wetlands dispute
with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, a newspaper reported.

Eau Claire-based Menard Inc. had wanted to build in the Eau Claire area but
the DNR wanted preserve two small wetlands on the town of Union site near Menards’
headquarters.

“We spent more than three years of frustration and over $1 million of
our money trying to build this project here in Eau Claire and never received
permission to do so,” Menards spokesman Jeff Abbott told the Leader-Telegram
in Eau Claire. “We are obviously frustrated and disappointed.”

Menards portrayed the DNR’s steps as regulatory roadblocks. DNR officials
said they were protecting the environment and didn’t treat Menards differently
than any other entity seeking to fill a wetland.

In February of 2005, Menards announced that two expansions involving 185 jobs
would go elsewhere because it couldn’t get DNR approval for the proposed
building near Eau Claire.

Menards reported it added 100 workers to its truss plant in Plano, Ill., and
85 others to the store-fixture manufacturing plant it opened in a former Menards
store in Belgrade, Minn.

Lost jobs

The company now says Eau Claire lost out on another 600 to 800 jobs that will
by divided among distribution centers under construction in Shelby, Iowa, and
Holiday City, Ohio.

“Because the (Eau Claire) warehouse project wasn’t approved, we spread
the jobs to other locations,” Abbott said.

Dan Baumann, water leader at the DNR’s west-central regional office in
Eau Claire, said the agency approves about 97 percent of applications for wetland
fills, although the process often includes some give and take.

“If a proposal meets (state) standards, we issue a permit,” Baumann
said. “If it doesn’t, we work with the applicant to try and find a
way to revise the project to meet their needs and meet the state standards.”

Menards officials argued that their proposal for building a 750,000-square-foot
seasonal storage warehouse would have helped the environment because they offered
to offset the loss of the “so-called wetland” by creating a much bigger
wetland.

“We felt that we could replace it with a very high-quality wetland in
the immediate vicinity for a win-win situation for wildlife, jobs and all concerned,”
Abbott said.

The problem with that is Wisconsin standards allow mitigation only as a last
resort, Baumann said.

Applicants seeking a permit to fill a wetland are required to look for ways
to avoid the negative impact. If that proves impossible, then entities must
try to minimize the impact before mitigation is considered, Baumann said. Menards
never made it past the first stage, he said.

Construction began this spring on a 735,000-square-foot facility in Shelby,
Iowa, for Menards subsidiary Midwest Manufacturing that will make pre-hung doors
and serve as a distribution center. The $32.7 million complex is expected to
create 300 to 400 jobs within three years.

Work started this summer on a 669,000-square-foot manufacturing and distribution
complex in Holiday City, Ohio. The project’s first phase is expected to
create 300 to 400 jobs.

Baumann said agency officials would be open to considering any new developments
Menards might propose for that land.