Walmart Corporation has sold a 16.3-acre piece of land west of Hood River to Ryan Holdings LLC, owner of Hood River Juice Co. and Ryan’s Juice.
The plot of land, which runs along the junction of Country Club and Frankton roads, is the same spot Walmart once eyed as a home for an expanded super store.
With the sale, signed last Wednesday according to County records, the Hood River-based juice processing company could see expanded horizons.
David Ryan, owner of Ryan’s Juice, has indicated plans to expand current operations —he intends for his current waterfront property at 550 Riverside Drive to work in tandem with the new site.
Ryan hasn’t yet “wrapped his arms” around specifics of the new venture yet, but he said he intends to expand his current operations without pushing into the “tight” downtown area for space.
“It’s been an ongoing blessing for us to have an option to work with property and parcels of this size,” said Ryan.
A Walmart representative confirmed the sale closed last week but did not comment further.
The new spot is visible from Interstate 84, and lies within Hood River County’s jurisdiction, just outside of city limits. The parcel is zoned C-2 for commercial use.
Ryan hopes the location will give him more space to work with than his “already tight” property at the Port of Hood River, which he has occupied since 2010.
With the land sale comes a bevy of conditions Walmart has laid out, according to a special warranty deed filed last Thursday at the Hood River County Records and Assessments Office.
The warranty agreement does not indicate the full amount of the land sale. Instead the document states the property was sold for $10 and “other good and valuable consideration,” then proceeds to list numerous conditions stipulating how the land can be used. The amount or contents of the “consideration” were not included in the public document.
According to Walmart’s sale conditions, the property cannot be used for a “discount store” or “supermarket,” nor for “adult stores,” bars or night clubs. Sale of alcohol and marijuana (through a Noxious Use Restriction) are off limits.
Future development in the Country Club area offers more land, Ryan said, but any type of development in that segment west of Hood River could still prove challenging in terms of “wetland remediation” — a point that complicated Walmart’s efforts to develop a 186,000-square-foot super center at the corner of Country Club and Frankton in 2004.
In an extended dispute that sparked in 2001, Hood River County, the city and Citizens for Responsible Growth argued Walmart’s proposed development near Phelps Creek, which runs through the site, could bring flooding to downstream properties.
Walmart attempted for three years to put a super center in that spot, but was stymied in July of 2004 when the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) upheld a local ruling against the application for development, the Hood River News reported in a July 21, 2004 article.
LUBA ruled the super center development was not “compatible” because it would be two or three times larger than any structure in the area.
In recent years, Walmart has sought to expand its current store on Wasco Street, which the city has ruled against three times.
In July, LUBA ruled in the city’s favor on Walmart’s latest appeal of the city’s determination that the company does not have the right to expand its facility. The case is currently before the Oregon Court of Appeals.
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