You may have heard the rumors: Super Walmart is coming. Walmart's leaving. Nothing's happening. It's going behind Wareham Crossing.  No, that's going to be a ______(insert store name here).

Meanwhile site work has begun on two affordable-housing projects in town, at 815 Main St. and Union Pond, so trucks and construction material have been moving through town and causing even more speculation.

So, what's going on?

"Walmart has no publicly announced plans for Wareham," said Walmart's Senior Manager of Public Affairs and Government Relations Christopher Buchanan.

Most of the speculation has focused on a parcel of cleared land on Tobey Road behind Wareham Crossing. Planning Board Chair George Barrett said he has heard that trucks have been delivering fill to and from the site, but that it is being used as a staging site for the affordable-housing projects. The owner of the site did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile Barrett and other town officials said that they had not yet seen any new applications for building permits filed or any plans for a Walmart or any other new building on the site.

The site has been cleared for years, according to Planning Board member Alan Slavin. He suspects that speculation of a Super Walmart is wishful, but perhaps not illogical, thinking.

"You see this big, open piece of land on the other side of Tobey Road and this is first thing you think - the idea of the Super Walmart wouldn't be a big stretch. But as of today, it's not happening."

The Building Inspector's Office confirmed that no new permits had been requested for the site or by Walmart.

But the rumors have prompted town officials to ask questions.

"We've put some inquiries in, but [Walmart's] not going to reveal to us what they aren't ready to say to anyone," said Chris Reilly, Director of the Community Economic Development Authority. "I know that we haven't been approached officially and, in my long experience, developers always check in and make us aware. But we haven't heard a thing."

Reilly thought that the rumors might be caused by other economic activity in Wareham and in the area, including a rumored shopping plaza near the Wareham and Rochester town line.  (No permits have been requested or plans presented for that site either, according to Rochester Town Adminstrator Richard LaCamera). Plus, Reilly said, any corporation is always evaluating their market and possible adjustments to their business.

Town Administrator Mark Andrews said he made inquiries last week to establish a dialogue with Walmart, as he said he would do with any business in town, and to convey that the town would eagerly work with the business to address their needs while ensuring that any proposed development would not be detrimental to the town. Andrews said that new development on the scale of a Super Walmart would provide Wareham with significant tax revenue.

He also said that the Tobey Road site would be attractive to a development of that type: It offers easy access to highways for the movement of construction equipment and inventory, other compatible businesses are located nearby, and vacant, developable land is available.

"We're available and we're out working to make sure that [business expansion or some level of local economic development] is a common thread in the business community," said Andrews. "They'll need expediting of permitting and we'll try to do that, particularly if there's a creation of jobs."

As for now, however, the ball is in Walmart's court.

"Nothing has come before the Planning Board," said Barrett. "The rumor mill has said it, but they ought to put Walmart on wheels, it's been moved around so much."