A proposed Wal-Mart shopping center near Grovetown came a step closer to realization Thursday with the Columbia County Planning Commission approving a preliminary plat for the project.

The shopping center will be constructed on about 61 acres in an area many officials call "The Gateway," which is north of Grovetown near the intersection of Lewiston Road and Interstate 20. The proposed center is referred to as the Wal-Mart Gateway project on county documents.

The project calls for 13 tracts on the property, with one going to Wal-Mart. No details on who might build on the remaining tracts were available Thursday evening.

Though planning commissioners approved the preliminary plat, they did place conditions on developers: buffers and landscaping must be installed adjacent to any properties zoned residential, a final plat must be submitted for approval and tracts on the property zoned light industrial and residential must be rezoned commercial before they are developed. A time frame for the Wal-Mart project has not been released.

Also at the meeting, Blanchard & Calhoun Commercial Corp. received an approval on a preliminary plat for its Village at Fury's Ferry shopping center. The approval allows developers to start clearing and grading the property.

Located at the corner of Furys Ferry and Evans to Locks roads, the grocery store-anchored center features nine tracts on about 14 acres.

Blanchard & Calhoun Commercial had sought to change the planned unit development earlier this year, but a disagreement between developers and a land owner of a two-acre parcel delayed that approval.

A point of conflict between planning officials and developers has long been the artist's renderings of the unnamed grocery store. The source of the conflict is the varying interpretations of what constitutes neo-classical architecture, as required by the zoning, said Matt Mills, of Blanchard & Calhoun Commercial.

The renderings of the grocery store were not submitted Thursday, but will be required before a building permit is issued, according to county documents.