Knightdale — A group of residents on Saturday held a party to celebrate the announcement that Wal-Mart will not build a new store in Knightdale. The retailer had planned to build a Supercenter in town.

Developer Rick Rowe told the town in late February that economic conditions had changed and that his anchor tenant had pulled out, putting an end to his plans to develop Village Park Commons on Knightdale Boulevard.

At the Knightdale Town Council's March 3 meeting, Mayor Russell Killen said that Citizens Against Residential Encroachment or C.A.R.E. and the Wal-Mart plan's other opponents caused the pull-out by stalling the project, costing the town about $1 million in lost revenues over five years.

Seventeen residents sued the town for approving conditional district zoning that made way for the project. C.A.R.E. funded the lawsuit.