Ames City Council members and community organizations opposed to a new mall had to regroup Wednesday following the council’s decision just after midnight Wednesday to change the Land Use Policy Plan map, which could open the door for a new mall in east Ames.

The council voted 4-2 in favor of moving the area zoned Regional Retail Commercial — the designation for large scale retail centers like a mall — from the interchange of Interstate 35 and U.S. Highway 30 to the interchange of I-35 and 13th Street, about a mile north. The resolution was the first step in a process likely allowing Tennessee-based developer James “Bucky” Wolford to build an enclosed shopping mall and strip mall anchored by a big box store, probably a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The council passed the resolution because of the tax revenue a new mall can provide and to show Ames’ commitment to business, said Councilman Daryle Vegge.

“For me [the decision] was a philosophical thing; it was free enterprise over protectionism in our city,” he said.

Recently elected Councilman Matthew Goodman cast one of the dissenting votes.

“My feeling was to have both the southeast and northeast side of 13th Street made available for regional commercial would create a shopping oasis preventing people from coming into town and visiting the city itself,” Goodman said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Goodman suggested a compromise allowing retail development only in the northeast quadrant of the I-35 and 13th Street interchange, a move he said he hoped would encourage more outside shoppers to come into Ames. Goodman said he will not pursue the compromise in later steps.

“The council has made it clear we will continue with the plan the way it is,” he said. “I’ll move ahead and try to make the area aesthetically compatible with Ames and retain the community’s character.”

The next steps for Wolford’s proposal and the development of a new mall is the annexation and rezoning of the land by the city, said Joe Pietruszynski, American Institute for Certified Planners Planner and Geographic Information Systems Coordinator for the City Planning and Zoning Commission. These steps must be applied for by Wolford and approved by both the City Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council, he said.

Annexation and rezoning approval usually takes about two to three weeks, though the timeframe can depend on the groups’ meeting schedules and the timing of the application, Pietruszynski said. After these steps are finished, the land must be subdivided, at which time the city can set regulations on the buildings to be constructed. The developer would then submit a plan for the site. At each step before the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council, citizens would have the opportunity to provide input.

Vegge and Goodman said they are unsure how long these next steps in developing a mall could take. “We don’t know when it will all come up,” Vegge said.

The Ames Smart Growth Committee, which vigorously opposed the map change, was disappointed in the council’s decision but will be active in the coming phases, said Jim Popken, chairman of the group. Popken, 920 Clark Ave., said he wasn’t sure, however, if the goals of Smart Growth would be possible now that the map has been changed.

“Trying to make the mall better under Smart Growth ideas is a difficult proposition,” he said.

Changing the map could put the mall far away from residential neighborhoods, which conflicts with Smart Growth’s principals of compact city design, Popken said. The group hasn’t formulated a plan yet as the decision was just reached yesterday, he said.

“I am very disappointed and I hoped for a closer vote,” he said.

Wolford said he hoped to break ground on the site in the fall of this year and have the mall open in 2006.