Salem Planning Board Approves Walmart Overhaul, Continues Two Disputed Applications

SALEM — February 27, 2024 — Salem Planning Board approves Walmart site overhaul and storage garage expansion in busy session. The board voted unanimously to conditionally approve a revised plan for Walmart Stores Inc. at 326 North Broadway, capping seasonal storage trailers at 20 and requiring screening, after Walmart and Bowler Engineering cut the trailer count from more than 40 and added speed humps, a striped associate path, and roughly 54 shrubs. Board member Paul Pelletier confirmed the day before the meeting that Walmart had already cleared the parking lot. The board also approved two corrugated metal storage garages for Area 53 Holding Company at 53 East Broadway — one 2,400 square feet, one 1,500 square feet — with $2,762 in combined impact fees and a requirement to mark the nearby wetland buffer. An amended conditional use permit for Tuscan Block 2000 at 18 Artisan Drive was approved as housekeeping after 91 rental apartments became 70 condominiums, reducing assigned underground spaces from 130 to 120. Two applications were continued: the Tuscan Village beer garden at 11 Via Toscana, which faces a $51,743 traffic impact fee and needs architectural elevations, and Select Realty LLC's bid to enclose an open-sided roof structure at 40 Lowell Road, five feet from a wetland, pending a written compliance report from town inspector Jeff Jensen.