Colliers Engineering & Design Project Coordinator Marah MacKenzie said the changes at Walmart on Veterans Memorial Drive are to expand the online pickup and delivery operations. Photo by Brian Quinn

Walmart has the town of Batavia Planning Board's approval to add to its online pickup and delivery operations at the Superstore's 4133 Veterans Memorial Drive location.

Colliers Engineering & Design Project Coordinator Marah MacKenzie presented the project at Tuesday night's meeting. The board approved the site plan shortly thereafter. The plan includes striping in the parking lot as needed and updated signage.

"As part of the interior remodel, they'll be looking at their online pickup and delivery operations," she said.

Walmart also proposes internal expansion, including dedicated space for refrigerator racks and other equipment to help with operations.

"The exterior improvements are aligned with that as well. We'll be relocating the online pickup and delivery stalls from the back corner of the building ... to the other side of the store in the area by the Garden Center," MacKenzie said.

The Garden Center will be partly demolished and a fence will be moved in and parking stalls added for online pickup and delivery. Walmart will designate the stalls with signs that have numbers on them.

"The dispense door that the associates will walk out of to deliver groceries to the customers' cars will be in the area out behind the Garden Center as well," she said. "There'll be additional stalls added to the back side of the store that's on the same side of the building for the Auto Center, so that we're not impacting those parking stalls for those operations."

On Monday night, the Zoning Board of Appeals approved a variance for the parking stall dimensions. The dimensions are 9 1/2 feet by 18 feet, while town code requires them to be 10 feet by 20 feet.

"Is there any consideration to the amount of traffic concentrated right in that location for where the pickup and delivery operations are going to be? That's right at the ingress and egress of the store," Board Alternate Michael Dana asked.

MacKenzie said that's the reason for demolishing part of the Garden Center - so that traffic doesn't have to cross the front entrance to go to the pickup and delivery area.