Recycling big-box store sites

Wisconsin Rapids, one of Wisconsin's old paper-mill towns, had never fought to keep Wal-Marts and other big-box retailers out. Quite the opposite. The city was so welcoming that it got a state grant to meet Wal-Mart's parking needs in the 1980s.

By the late 1990s, however, Wal-Mart outgrew the space and moved to the outskirts of town. Downtown Wisconsin Rapids was left with a 120,000-square-foot shell and a giant parking lot. A neighboring shopping center suffered.

Today, the old Wal-Mart has new life as the Centralia Center for senior citizens. "Had we not (done so) ... today it would still be sitting there blighted," Mayor Mary Jo Carson says.

America's big-box experience is entering a new phase.

Some towns continue to block megastores because they object to their economic impact on local merchants and the traffic congestion they ...