Two meetings this week should prove a turning point in the battle over Wal-Mart’s future at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive. But it’s anyone’s guess whether the meetings will resolve the issue.

“We’re hopeful that the result of the (Board of Zoning Appeals) will conclude this matter,” developer Bill Newsome said. “The issues are narrow and straightforward.”

Not so fast, others say.

“I wouldn’t say this week will decide things,” Assistant City Manager Dave Corliss said Monday. “This week will be an important step.”

That step involves two meetings, both at City Hall:

• On Wednesday, the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission will hear a proposed area plan and rezonings for the site.

The plan and rezonings would limit the biggest building at the intersection’s northwest corner to 80,000 square feet — 50,000 square feet less than the store Wal-Mart has applied to build and less than half the size of the retailer’s initial proposal in 2002.

• On Thursday, the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals will hear from 6Wak Land Investments LLC and Wal-Mart, which are appealing the city’s August decision to deny building permits for both Wal-Mart and an unnamed restaurant for the site.

City officials said the restaurant was part of the same plan under which a 132,000-square-foot Wal-Mart also would be built. Wal-Mart, they said, is a department store and thus prohibited from the site by zoning rules. 6Wak said Wal-Mart should be classified as a “variety store,” which would be allowed.

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“It is clear that a modern-day Wal-Mart sells many and varied high-value products as televisions, computers, cameras, lawnmowers, and home and office furniture, and countless others,” city officials said in unsigned documents filed with the board of zoning appeals.

But Wal-Mart’s attorneys, in documents filed with the board last week, noted the Planning Commission in March voted to recommend a larger Wal-Mart project — never mentioning a concern that the retailer qualified as a department store.

“Obviously, if any member of the city planning staff or any member of the Planning Commission believed that the Wal-Mart store was a ‘department store,’ someone would have stood up and asked why the Planning Commission would recommend approval of a rezoning designed for a Wal-Mart store, but for which a Wal-Mart store would be a prohibited use,” Wal-Mart attorney Timothy Sear wrote. “Certainly no one acted with such folly.”

While this week’s hearings will be pivotal, they’re not expected to finish the affair. The Planning Commission’s decision, for example, will be reviewed by the Lawrence City Commission. And either party could appeal the Board of Zoning Appeals’ decisions to the Douglas County District Court.