SKOWHEGAN -- The Planning Board Tuesday night voted to accept the application for expansion of the Wal-Mart store at Fairgrounds Marketplace into a Wal-Mart Supercenter, with grocery sales, a pharmacy and optical department.

But one way or the other, Planning Board Chairman John Youney said, the matter is surely to end up in court on appeal.

Final approval of the expansion plan is up to the Planning Board, and Youney said he wants the job done to the letter of the law.

"Whatever decision we make -- for or against -- my prediction is someone takes it to court," Youney said. "All indications are from the attitudes and approaches in other places, like in Kennebunkport, it went to court.

"That's why were trying to do it right. We don't want somebody kicking it back to the Planning Board because we did something wrong," he said.

The proposed 30,000-square-foot expansion to the existing store, built in 1994, amounts to a 25 percent increase in store volume.

Youney said the plan involves two big corporate players -- Wal-Mart and Hannaford Bros. supermarkets, which has a store in the same plaza.

He said an original "non-compete" clause, which protected Hannaford from Wal-Mart selling grocery items, has expired.

He said documents pertaining to non-compete clauses are confidential, but discussions over the years indicate to him that Wal-Mart now is free to operate a grocery store.

"I'm quite sure they have expired, from what they told us in the past," Youney said.

The plan, as outlined Tuesday night by Aaron Shaw, project manager for engineering consultant Sewell Company of Old Town, is to not only expand the existing 104,000-square-foot store, but to freshen up the entire site.

"Wal-Mart would like to provide what they call a new store experience," Shaw said. "So to achieve that, they're going to replace the pavement, put in new curbing, new lighting, new landscaping and also replace the concrete in the truck loading areas."

The existing main entrance, automotive tire and tube department and garden center will remain the same.

The plan was brought before the Planning Board under the town's site review ordinance and because of Maine's Informed Growth Act, which seeks to regulate so-called "big-box" stores and their impact on the town in which they build.

Maine's Informed Growth Act requires towns that have received permit applications for large retail stores to determine if the development would have an "undue adverse impact" on the local economy, the community and its downtown.

The law applies to proposed retail stores 75,000 square feet or larger in size.

The Skowhegan Wal-Mart and a proposed Lowe's in Farmington will be the first tests of the new law.

If approved, construction on the Skowhegan Wal-Mart Supercenter would begin next year with completion eight to 10 months after that.

The expansion would provide nearly 100 new jobs for area residents, company officials say.

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534 ext. 342

dharlow@centralmaine.com