Plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive may be at a temporary standstill after a late-March vote by the City Commission, but the area is still growing despite shrinking space.

“The likelihood is that there will be a big box there eventually,” said Greg DiVilbiss, a developer responsible for both the shopping center on the southwest corner of the intersection and the Wakarusa Corporate Centre at 18th and Wakarusa.

“There’s still going to be potentially a tremendous amount of retail in that area,” he said.

City commissioners rejected rezonings and plans for a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive by a 4-1 vote on March 25.

But that doesn’t mean the business won’t eventually make the neighborhood home.

Wal-Mart’s Lawrence attorney, Todd Thompson, said the retailer could bypass the rejection and build a store with the zoning that already is in place.

And with or without the Sam Walton’s discount giant, retail businesses continue to spring up in already cramped quarters.

The West Side Deli and the Salty Iguana both opened in 2001, and the newest addition to the area is the Lawrence Nutrition Center, DiVilbiss said.

Still in the works is a Kentucky Fried Chicken and A&W Root Beer, which will be at the intersection between Central National Bank and McDonald’s.

Construction work continues at the corner of Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive. In March, city commissioners rejected rezonings and plans for a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter at the intersection.

DiVilbiss said about 11,000 square feet were recently leased in the corner of the Hereford House strip mall for a children’s center and museum. Leasers Amy and Karl Gottschamer said they hoped the center would be open in July.

Under the city planning initiative Horizon 2020, the intersection was designed to have at most 450,000 gross square feet of commercial land. Only about half of that remains undeveloped.

Since the first signs of development around 1998, 170,000 gross square feet already have been built upon and another 154,000 have been approved for building, said Bryan Dyer, long-range planner for the city.

But growth has slowed slightly, and it’s hard to say whether the area will be completely filled up in another five years, Dyer said. The northwest corner of the intersection could be built upon soon, while the northeast corner is still agriculturally zoned.

In 2002, the city granted three building permits, two to finish off units in the strip mall and another for a new building at 711 Wakarusa Drive, said Barry Walthall, the city’s code enforcement manager.

That’s down from what Walthall saw in the late 1990s.

“There’s just not a whole lot of open space left on the south side of the street,” he said.

Although the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce does not deal with retail businesses, member Marilyn Bittenbender said the growth at Sixth and Wakarusa was not surprising.

When a certain demographic concentration is reached, retail businesses follow, said Bittenbender, who works for Grubb & Ellis/The Winbury Group and has a client in the area.

“Retail businesses are supported by residential traffic so wherever you have people living that’s where a typical retail business will want to locate,” she said. “That’s who their customer is.”

Her prediction is not good news for those residents who want to keep traffic at a minimum in what used to be the far reaches of Lawrence.

But large department stores would be a plus for locally owned businesses in the area, said DiVilbiss.

“Having an anchor at that intersection would benefit them tremendously,” he said.

Regardless of what happens, DiVilbiss predicted that in several years the intersection would be barely recognizable.

The intersection is the city’s western gateway and serves as a major thoroughfare for those who commute to Topeka he said, predicting that Sixth Street will grow to look more like Clinton Parkway.

“It’s going to be an amazing thing to see,” DiVilbiss said. “It’s going to be a very, very busy intersection.”