Towns Get A Wal-mart Hard Sell The Chain Doesn't Skimp When Courting, But It Has Its Limits.

Raymond J. Regan was on his soapbox.

The Warminster Township supervisor had chewed up more than an hour of yet another lengthy, late-night town meeting in January, haranguing about a proposed 117,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store.

Through it all, Wal-Mart's attorney and land planner stood by passively. The discount chain had proposed to revitalize an abandoned eyesore on the edge of town, to create jobs, pay taxes and make considerable road improvements. It had agreed to nearly every request the town had made - even to banning deliveries after 11 p.m. Nothing Regan could say at that point would stop the store.

Yet there he was, in full filibuster.

Finally, Wal-Mart attorney Marc B. Kaplin cut in.

"What is it?" Kaplin barked. "What do you want?"

"A salt shelter," Regan shot back, referring to the $100,000 structure the township needs to store road salt.

Everyone broke out laughing, except Regan.

"I was dead serious," Regan said later. "They opened their mouth and said they would do whatever it took, so I asked them to put up $100,000."

Wal-Mart has yet to bestow upon Warminster a salt shed - and likely won't - but Regan could be forgiven for asking. After all, America's largest retailer has arrived in the Philadelphia suburbs sounding a lot like Santa with a sack full of goodies.

Facing an anti-development movement fostered during the 1980s and an anti- Wal-Mart sentiment that seems to follow the store into urban regions, Wal- Mart has responded by serenading local officials with sweet promises of costly cooperation.

In Plymouth Meeting, where Wal-Mart wants to put a pair of huge stores near the intersection of the Blue Route and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Wal-Mart has offered to do $5 million in road improvements.

In Exton, Wal-Mart has not only offered to rebuild a quarter-mile-plus strip of Route 100 - at a cost of $2.5 million - but also has consented to do extensive work on nearby roadways and to preserve seven historic structures on the site. That's not to mention the expected contribution to the West Whiteland Township recreation fund.

Wal-Mart's apparent largess does not mean that all town leaders have gone starry-eyed and granted the stores free rein. But, in some places, it sure has helped.