The new Walmart planned for South Dakota Avenue and Riggs Road NE might have been announced a year later than the first four, but it’ll get rolling at about the same time as the rest of them, if all goes according to plan. Walmart and developer JBG submitted a large tract review application for the site yesterday, which pretty much gets a once-over by the Office of Planning before construction can proceed.

As I mentioned when we first got a look at plans for the site, it’s definitely one of the better-designed Walmarts headed into the city, whatever you might think about the mega-retailer’s business practices. Three hundred and fifty apartments will sit atop the first-floor Walmart, which will have a cafe and little plaza with outdoor seating at Riggs Road and 3rd Street NE, and the rest of the street frontage is reasonably interesting and varied. This, in an area that has not much multifamily housing or retail at all, only a few blocks from a Metro station (although it does have quite a bit more parking than it probably needs—-775 spaces total, or 180 more than are required).

Interestingly, Montgomery County is trying to figure out how to get this level of urban design at the new Walmart planned for Rockville Pike: As County Council president Roger Berliner explained last week on the Kojo Nnamdi Show, they just want to make sure it fits in with the White Flint Sector Plan, which is going to require some re-zoning to make sure Walmart gets incorporated into some larger mixed-use project. A caller who manages a shopping mall across the street said all his tenants were excited about their new neighbor. Such are the times!

Full package after the jump.

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