It's all over but the shouting for attorney's fees.

More than three years after it began, the battle over 17 acres along North Central Expressway has come to a quiet, satisfying and stunning resolution.

There will be no Sam's Club in the shadow of Cityplace. Nor, for that matter, a Home Depot or a Costco or a Lowe's or any other sprawling big box store perched atop a sea of parking spaces.

All of the attorneys with whom I spoke in recent days — those representing the city, the developer and the fledgling neighborhood group that waged war with the twin Goliaths — say the case is not yet formally closed until they settle who gets paid what. But for our purposes, they agree on the only thing that matters.

The Big Box is dead. It was a Dallas County judge who signed the execution order a few weeks ago, but it was the little guys who actually did the deed. And, as a result, they forced the city to be more upfront with residents about possible changes coming to their neighborhoods.

They said it couldn't be done, the politicians and political appointees and city attorneys who, three years ago, insisted, tough luck, this was a done deal. They warned that trying to undo the zoning would lead to a lawsuit from Trammell Crow Co., the developer, and Sam's, the client. They insisted reopening Trammell Crow's zoning case, which was written by smart people who can obscure bad things hiding in the open, would lead other developers to flee the city limits.

But here we are, anyway. Sam's is long gone. Those 17 acres are still sitting there, covered in grass and rocks. The city rewrote its notices about pending zoning changes.

The empty lot where Sam's Club was proposed, east of North Central Expressway between N. Haskell Avenue and N. Carroll Avenue in Dallas on Tuesday, July 18, 2017. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

All thanks to the little ol' East Village Association, which the city once said wasn't even legit enough to file the lawsuit.

Jonas Park led the fight to keep Sam's Club out of the West Village.

"It's a big victory, especially for little people like us who have supposedly no power," said Jonas Park, the Korean-born art director who started the petitions and got the buttons and T-shirts made and went to City Hall demanding to be heard. "We all just knew — believed — that there's still justice out there."

Barring an appeal down the road — an outcome none of the lawyers seems eager to chase — the matter was laid to rest the first week of June by District Court Judge Maricela Moore. It should have been a monumental moment. But I only found out about it when I noticed the City Plan Commission is being briefed about the case in executive session on Thursday and went to look at the case file.

Perhaps such a victory must be whispered behind closed doors before it's shouted in public.

This was never just about sticking a Sam's in a neighborhood that didn't want it. It was also about more than sticking a suburban-sprawl-scented parking-lot development near the city's only underground light-rail station and across Central from the ever-expanding West Village, which is only shoppable, eatable and drinkable because it's walkable.

This was about whether Trammell Crow Co. tried to sneak one by nearby residents in 2013, when the developer bought the parcel and promised neighbors nothing more than a "retail development with design standards." And whether City Hall actually gave these folks fair warning that they were about to have a megastore slammed down in their backyards.

"If I were advising a real estate client," said Andy Ryan, one of the association's attorneys, "the lesson here is don't do something that intentionally pisses off the community."

Judge Moore ultimately came to the conclusion that the city didn't do its job, and that the people who live near the land shouldn't suffer for their sins.

Site of the once-proposed Sam's Club east of North Central Expressway. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

Like most of the other judges who've heard the case since it was filed three summers ago, Moore sided with the East Village Association and determined that the ordinance passed by the plan commission and approved by the City Council was "insufficient to inform recipients that the zoning could allow for a merchandise or food store 100,000 feet or more." That part of the ordinance has been erased.

At Trammell Crow's request, Moore kept in place the planned development district created by the original zoning request. But all that means is when Trammell Crow gets to developing — probably some mixed-use thing with a grocery as an anchor — the company won't have to start all over.

The neighborhood "got what they wanted, and our client has a project that's viable," Trammell Crow attorney Jay Madrid said Friday. "It may be scaled down, but it's clearly a viable project."

I guess the neighbors will ultimately be the judge of that.