Country living slipping away as Wal-Mart comes to Lucas

 

The past and future of Collin County meet at the intersection of Bethany Drive and FM2551 in Lucas.

On the west sits Allen and its neat red-brick neighborhoods, thousands of homes with manicured lawns and holiday decorations and six lanes of traffic running through it. To the southeast, it’s Parker and the Parker Lakes development — big homes on big lots and no citified sidewalks in a country-suburban setting.

And just to the north, across West Lucas Road, open fields of dark earth stretch north along FM2551, a landscape unchanged for decades at the western edge of Lucas.

But like much of the Dallas area, where growth mushrooms out from the cities and suburbs, change is on the way. In a matter of months, this little corner of Collin County will look a whole lot different. A new Wal-Mart is coming to Lucas, 180,000 square feet of groceries and merchandise that will attract people and money and traffic and, almost inevitably, more commercial development.

For the city, that means jobs and, most important, tax revenue — good things in a place that saw its population increase by almost 80 percent from 2000 to 2010 as the first bits of suburbanization pushed the population to 5,166. That lifted the population density of this still largely rural area to more than 400 people per square mile.

That pales in comparison with Allen’s 84,000 people — more than 3,200 per square mile — and even smaller Parker’s density of almost 700 per square mile.

But some already lament the loss of the dark nighttime skies and open spaces.

“I’m only a seven-year veteran of this area,” said Chris King, who lives across West Lucas Road from the Wal-Mart site, “but I can only imagine what people think who have lived here all their lives.”

His family moved to Parker Lake Estates in Parker so the kids could play in the yard without fear of crime or traffic. King expects all that to change.

“Once this is built, if I go up to the second floor of my home and sit on my daughter’s bed, there’s no way I won’t see it,” King said.

Lisa Swan, who serves on the board of the Parker Lake Estates homeowners association, said people thought the Wal-Mart project had been put on hold because there were no sewage lines in that part of Lucas. And the roads haven’t changed in the 18 years she’s lived in the area.

“It’s still the original farm-to-market road. They haven’t widened it at all,” she said. “And even though the Wal-Mart would face south, they say the main entrances will be on the west, on the Angel Parkway [FM2551] side. So there are no plans to widen Bethany Drive or Lucas Road or 2551 going south. That will be a real problem.”

The Texas Department of Transportation does have plans to widen this portion of FM2551 someday but no money to actually do the work, said Barry Heard, TxDOT’s engineer for Collin County.

“There is no funding for any project in that area,” Heard said, adding that he was surprised to learn of the project.

“We were at a town meeting in Lucas not too long ago and the subject was roads, and nothing was ever said about a Wal-Mart,” he said.

But questions about the roads and other issues don’t seem likely to slow the project down.

Wal-Mart officials, in a written statement, said the company “sees an opportunity to serve our customers in a county that is seeing tremendous growth.”

The store will include all the usual Wal-Mart features — general merchandise, groceries and a pharmacy — in a building designed with “energy efficient technology and environmentally friendly features to reduce energy and water consumption and minimize waste.”

Wal-Mart hopes to begin construction in early to mid-2012, opening for business in 2013.

And Stacy Caudell, public works director in Lucas, said there’s nothing to slow Wal-Mart down.

“They could start construction pretty much any time, I believe,” he said.

As part of Wal-Mart’s agreement with the city, the company will add turning lanes into the property, Caudell said, and will work with nearby Allen on road improvements leading to the shopping center.

None of that is likely to satisfy neighbors across the road in Parker, though.

“I’d say most people here are opposed, although there’s probably a handful that are not unhappy because they wanted a grocery store close by,” Swan said. “But I don’t think anyone wanted one that close and they definitely don’t want the traffic in the neighborhood.

“And the houses that back up to Lucas Road, you can look right into them at night. And Parker has an ordinance against having solid fencing,” she said, “so we’ll have to see if we can get an exception.”

Then there are a few like King, who is already considering moving when the Wal-Mart comes.

“If everyone says, ‘So what?’ and goes on, that’s all right,” King said. “But I think most people don’t know what’s going on. They should at least let people know what’s happening so they can decide what to do.”

He’s already looking at other areas.

“Would I move? Absolutely,” King said. “I couldn’t be more serious about it.”