After receiving no word for almost a year regarding Wal-Mart’s plans, the company that owns the property the retail giant had been eyeing in Westbrook has started marketing the property to other developers.

Wal-Mart had been working with Saunders Brothers, a dowel manufacturing company that has been trying to sell off its mill property in Westbrook after moving its operations to Locke Mills.

Josh Saunders, the president of the company, said this week that, while his firm is still working with Wal-Mart, he would be open to entertaining other offers to buy the 27-acre parcel abutting the Westbrook Arterial.

Saunders said the company has never entered into a signed agreement with Wal-Mart. He said Saunders Brothers’ dealings with the Bentonville, Ark., retailer were informal, and continue to be. “We’re working with Wal-Mart to the same extent we’ve always worked with Wal-Mart,” he said.

Saunders said his first choice would still be to sell the land to Wal-Mart.

“We are hopeful that Wal-Mart will be able to determine how to build a store on this site that would meet their goals,” Saunders said. “At the same time, the process has taken so long that we need to explore all of our options.”

Most of the property has stood unused for quite some time. Although a majority of the company’s operations have been relocated out of Westbrook, Saunders Brothers still has a small office staff in Westbrook.

Christopher Buchanan, a Wal-Mart senior manager for public affairs, said the company continues to evaluate its options for Westbrook, but it has no firm plans to publicly announce at this time.

The property is being marketed by CB Richard Ellis/The Boulos Company in Portland. A listing on the company’s Web site gives an asking price of $4.9 million.

Daniel Greenstein, vice president of CB Richard Ellis/The Boulos Company, who is listed as the agent for the property, said while Wal-Mart remains a player for the property, the real estate firm is working with other, unnamed developers interested in the site.

“We should have considerably more information in the next 30 days, by year’s end,” said Greenstein.

The future of the proposed Wal-Mart was cast in doubt in August 2005 when the Westbrook City Council voted to cap the size of retail projects in the so-called gateway zone at 160,000 square feet. The gateway zone pertains to much of the land around the city’s two Turnpike exits.

The restrictions passed by the council also contain provisions for increased buffering for the surrounding neighborhood and controls on lighting and hours of operation and delivery. However, the size of the store was the largest problem for Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart had originally proposed building a 203,000-square-foot Supercenter on the mill site. In 2004, the council voted to change the property’s zoning from industrial to gateway, clearing the way for the Wal-Mart.

At the urging of Westbrook Our Home, a neighborhood group organized to fight the project, the council asked the Westbrook Planning Board to come up with a series of restrictions that would be applied to large retail projects in the zone. The board worked for almost a year on those standards, sending them to the council in July 2005.

Wal-Mart subsequently indicated it would be willing to comply with all the restrictions, as long as the store size was 180,000 square feet.

Since the council vote, Wal-Mart has been silent on its future plans for the property.

Saunders said he’s anxious to have an answer about the future of the property. “Wal-Mart hasn’t come to a final decision,” he said. “We hope they will come to a positive decision in the near term. I sure as heck hope this will be done soon.”

Staff Writer Charlie Smith contributed to this report.