There’s a thick folder on file at the city growth management department, full of pictures of Wal-Marts from around the country.

There’s one in Park City, Utah, that’s part of a shopping center designed to look like an old-fashioned Main Street. The store in Woodland Park, Colo., on a highway through the Pike National Forest, has peaked roofs like a mountain lodge and a statue of a mule deer.

The Wal-Mart in Manhattan, Kan., is screened by a stone wall with brick columns every several feet, buffered by trees and shrubs.

Rapid City residents took the photos while traveling and sent them in over the past five years during the retailer’s first two attempts to build a second store here.

The photos show how Wal-Mart architecture has changed since Rapid City’s current store was built in 1995. People took the pictures to encourage city planners to press for an attractive store here if a second store comes along.

The stores have come a long way from the old blue-and-gray boxes that became a visual symbol for the anti-Wal-Mart movement of the past decade.

Over time, Wal-Mart responded as city planners and shoppers pushed for more aesthetically appealing buildings -- and as stores moved into wealthier communities with strict planning and zoning standards. Developers have not yet submitted drawings of what a second Rapid City Wal-Mart could look like, but there is a good chance it won’t resemble the current store on North La Crosse Street.

“I would expect whatever they build there would be quite nice and unlike anything people are used to seeing,” said Mike Troy, editor of Retailing Today magazine. “They’re more amenable than they’ve ever been in their entire history to make the community happy.”

Michael Staenberg, president of THF Realty, the lead developer on the project, told the Journal recently the store would fit in with Rapid City’s Western landscape but didn’t have specifics. In addition to aesthetic appeal, THF aims to build stores that are energy-efficient and minimize light pollution, Staenberg said.

City Growth Management Director Marcia Elkins said the store’s design will be a factor in her staff’s analysis of the development applications.

“We’re aware of what Wal-Mart does across the country and want to make sure Rapid City gets a facility that’s appropriate for our community,” she said.

But while Wal-Mart boasts about store design on its Web site, a spokesman refused to discuss some of the newer stores.

“Generally speaking, we always try to do a nice job building a store that’s appropriate for the community,” Ryan Horn said. “That’s a function that usually we work on with the city planners and city managers and city staff.”

But he said he could not talk about what Rapid City’s store could look like.

“To even discuss that is premature,” Horn said.

He said the company has moved toward a “more environmental” design on most of its stores, but when asked for more information about those stores, said he couldn’t provide it and couldn’t connect the Journal with Wal-Mart officials who could.

Asked for information on some of the unique Wal-Mart store designs, he said, “I’m not familiar with those sites” and called them “not relevant” to the Rapid City project.

“To go out and discuss anything else, things that are in states two or three states away, or stores that were built five or six years ago, is just speculation,” Horn said.

In some cases, it took significant negotiations on the part of city planners or community groups to get Wal-Mart to improve the appearance of a proposed store.

The city planning director in Woodland Park, Colo., told the Colorado Springs Gazette, “It required some back and forth for awhile just to land on the common spot.”

Wal-Mart scaled the store down for Woodland Park and was willing to remove the word “Supercenter” from the building. But the city could not get Wal-Mart to remove the words “We sell for less” without also losing the mule deer statue the store was willing to provide, the Gazette reported. So the city conceded that point.

Changes to a Wal-Mart proposed in Austin, Texas, weren’t made so easily. In 2006, the retailer announced plans for a two-story, 225,000-square-foot Supercenter with a three-story parking garage.

Residents protested on the grounds that the store was too big for the neighborhood but ultimately lost a lawsuit that argued the store would create a public safety hazard.

Still, the retailer recently announced new plans for a single-story, 97,000-square-foot store with no parking garage.

“We think we were victorious because we had a respectable, honest declaration of what we wanted that was something we thought would be a good fit for our city and also a good fit for Wal-Mart and the developer,” said Jason Meeker with Responsible Growth for Northcross, the group that fought the initial plan.

“We never said ‘No Wal-Mart, get out of our town.’ If we had been disrespectful, had been rude and had public communication that was unreasonable, we wouldn’t have been able to have the result.”

Meeker said communities should take an active approach in discussing what type of store they want and present different concepts instead of protesting the general idea of the store.

Troy with Retailing Today agreed there is room for discussion.

“You’re in the driver’s seat as far as being able to negotiate with them,” he said.

Contact Barbara Soderlin at 394-8417 or barbara.soderlin@rapidcityjournal.com.