Despite opposition from a number of residents, the Mobile City Planning Commission unanimously voted Thursday in favor of a Wal-Mart Supercenter to be located on Airport Boulevard just east of Providence Hospital.

The commission's action clears the way for the store to be built, unless someone appeals the planned development to the City Council.

The commission added requirements Thursday that the proposed building be "substantially" similar to the renderings the company has displayed to residents and that the company finish installing the cables needed to synchronize traffic signals along Airport Boulevard before opening.

Other conditions that were already attached to the application by city staff included a new traffic signal in front of the store.

Residents who spoke against the store focused on trying to wring further concessions from the developer, in part because zoning was already in place to permit heavy commercial use.

"Ask yourself, 'Would I want the development to be built across the street from my house?'" Willow Brook resident Stephen Prager said to the commission.

Jerry O'Brien, the local broker for Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, told the commission that the application exceeded all the city rules and requirements.

"Hopefully, we can make this a project that fits in well," said O'Brien, the president of J.L. O'Brien and Associates.

Anyone who wants to appeal the decision has until Jan. 6 to file with City Clerk Glenda Morgan. Neighbors said they were considering an appeal but hadn't yet decided.

O'Brien noted than the 121,340-square-foot store and 561 parking places are less than half the level of development that the commission approved for the site last year. He also noted that the site last year was rezoned B-3, a category allowing heavy commercial use, such as a Wal-Mart.

"What's before us today is not a rezoning," O'Brien said. "The property is already properly zoned."

Some members of the Planning Commission said the existing B-3 zoning was an important part of their decision.

"The situation here is that the zoning is already in place," said commission member and restaurant owner Mead Miller. "We can't be arbitrary; we can't be discriminatory. Wal-Mart's a force to be reckoned with, but there's only so much we can dictate."

Residents complained that the decision was being made shortly before Christmas and said they didn't feel the developers did enough to notify nearby neighborhoods.

Far fewer people came to Thursday's meeting than came to a Wednesday night informational meeting held at Shaw High School.

Opponents continued to express disbelief that the store would not notably worsen traffic on Airport.

"A simple traffic light is not going to do it," Bettina Prager said.

But O'Brien and city traffic engineers stood by the findings of a Wal-Mart-financed study that found that the signal in front of the store, combined with other signal and intersection improvements, would ease pressure on the artery.

Neighbors sought a number of other concessions, including a brick wall to be built on the north side of Airport, in a median between Airport and a parallel service road. The Wal-Mart would be on the south side of Airport.

A city traffic engineer advised against such a wall, saying it would be a hazard to motorists and would limit visibility. Other resident demands that the commission didn't take up included limiting the store's hours, restricting signs and keeping a wooded buffer facing Airport Boulevard.

The commission did mandate that Wal-Mart build a store similar to drawings that have been presented by developers, with commission members saying they wanted to prevent a "bait and switch," ending in an uglier, cheaper building.

The commission also mandated that Wal-Mart had to lay the cable to link the new light at the store with four existing traffic signals starting at Hillcrest Road and ending at Cody Road before it could open.

O'Brien squirmed at those demands, saying he felt the project was getting a higher level of scrutiny than other developments, including the larger one previously proposed for the site.

"Candidly, I don't understand the need to single this project out," he said.

But after conferring with an engineer and architect doing work for the retailer, he agreed to both additional conditions. O'Brien said the development team still had to get final approval for the store from Wal-Mart, and could not say for sure when it would open.