The town of Waynesville will concede to developers of Best Buy and allow the company to be exempt from parts of the town’s land use standards.

After months of wrangling with an awkward site design, Cedarwood Development, Inc., the company in charge of developing Best Buy’s 30,000-square-foot structure, told town officials that it simply could not bring the building up to the street it fronts and put parking in back, which is what the town’s land-use standards demand.

The requirement’s purpose is to create a pedestrian-friendly zone that would connect structures and encourage walking rather than driving.

The final design for the Best Buy building has the side of the structure facing Hyatt Creek Road and a parking lot in front of the building.

The concession on the town’s part is relatively minor, and likely will leave many wondering what the big deal is. After all, the small town of Waynesville is lucky enough to get a Best Buy — so what if it can’t do everything the town asks?

But the concession marks an about-face for Mayor Gavin Brown in particular, who last month berated Cedarwood developers at a town board meeting for not trying hard enough to conform to the town’s land-use plan.

What Brown didn’t know then, though, was that Cedarwood had identified a hotspot of tolulene deposits on the Best Buy parcel, left over from the days when the site was the Dayco rubber parts factory. Conforming to the land-use standards would mean the main structure — rather than the parking lot — would sit on top of the tolulene. In that case, major environmental mitigation efforts would have to be taken, doubling the cost of construction and making it too prohibitive for Best Buy to come to Waynesville.

Cedarwood knew this all along, but didn’t reveal it until a May 8 meeting with the mayor. Cedarwood developer David Scarnatti told Brown he was afraid the presence of tolulene would become a public stigma attached to the site.

“Scarnotti really just didn’t want the public to know,” Brown says. And after the revelation, it made sense why Cedarwood was reluctant to give in to the town’s requests. “That’s why they played all their cards to begin with,” the mayor said.

Alderwoman Libba Feichter questioned the developer’s decision to withhold the information about the hotspot, but says she understood in the end.

“I was a bit surprised that they were not forthcoming about the contamination, but I understand their reasoning,” she said.

Cedarwood also knew the town had previously made concessions to Wal-Mart and Home Depot, which are located on a former brownfields site that was contaminated by chemicals.

Brown blames himself for not realizing the Best Buy site was also contaminated.

“We were so focused on the Home Depot and Wal-Mart that I fumbled the ball a little bit. I just didn’t look hard enough on what was going on,” says the mayor.

Overall, several aspects of the Cedarwood parcel don’t comply with the land-use plan. And in a way, this made it easier to give Best Buy what it wanted.

“What difference does it make?” Brown remembers asking himself. “We made a mistake, if we made one, when Wal-Mart and Home Depot got parking in front. You finally have to say you made your mistake going in by thinking you’re going to do something you’ll never be able to do.”

A letter from Best Buy to the town board stated that the project would be in “serious jeopardy” if the development was made to comply with the town’s land-use plan. Losing it wouldn’t be worth it, Brown says. The company will employ about 65 people with mid-level jobs and rake in up to $25 million in sales.

Best Buy is also constructing a stone façade, water feature and leaving room for public art space. In addition, Brown was able to snag a donation to the town’s public art commission from the company.

Feichter, too, says the compromise was worth it.

“To me that is not a bad thing, that you’re willing to compromise when there are conditions that make other solutions impossible,” she said.