BATAVIA/Taco Bell changes their plans a bit during a concept review at the Planning and Development Committee meeting

Stephanie Albright, Project Engineer from APD Engineering Architecture in Victor, presented a new sketch plan for the Taco Bell Project at West Main and Montclair Avenue at Tuesday evening’s City of Batavia Planning and Development Committee meeting.

Albright says New York State Department of Transportation would not allow entry and exit for the fast-food restaurant on the West Main Street side of the project because it is too narrow of a block, so customers and delivery trucks will now enter and exit the restaurant on Montclair Avenue. Only vehicles exiting the drive thru will exit onto West Main Street.

She says delivery trucks usually make their deliveries in the morning once or twice per week. Dumpsters are located at the rear of the site and would be taken out a few times per week.

New sketch plan revealed at Tuesday’s meeting

The city requires a 10-foot landscape buffer, but the project only meets that requirement on the north and south side. On the Montclair side of the project there is only 5 feet.

“We will be pursuing a variance for that; the lot is just too narrow to provide any additional green space there.”

Current Taco Bell location 413 West Main Street

Hospitality Syracuse, Inc,(Chan Patel) the owners of Taco Bell, are looking to move from their current location at 413 West Main Street, to 244-248 West Main Street, the former Timebuyer location. Albright says they have withdrawn plans for a gas station at the site. The new proposed location will have 22 parking spots, and the building will be the latest prototype.

244-248 West Main Street, the former Timebuyer location is the proposed new location for Taco Bell. The location does not include the property to the left of the fence.

Provided rendering-APD Engineering Architecture

“The elevation here is what Taco Bell is calling their Kitchen X building, it’s the latest prototype, so there is none of these in this area yet. They’re going with a more of a black metal clad and a lot of glass look to the building,” says Albright.

Franschisee Mike McCracken (left) with owner Chan Patel at the City Planning and Development Committee meeting on Tuesday evening.

Franchisee Mike McCracken says the new proposed building will be longer and narrower with about the same square footage and have the same number of staff as the current location.

“It’s designed with more kitchen in mind for more throughput so you can get orders through quicker, quite a bit more, so that should help operations,” says McCracken.

Board President Duane Preston asked McCracken what the plans are for the current building.

“I know the Nobles that own it pretty well, we talked as recently as this afternoon about that current location, so they’re not sure yet, but I think their intent would be to find maybe a smaller user or something that was less impactful, but it’s a tremendously valuable little piece of dirt and probably the busiest intersection it the city, I don’t think they’ll have any problems with interest, but just getting something to fit that works.”

The property is located within the 100-year floodplain, and the building will need to be floodproofed in accordance with the City requirements. While the full landscape buffers cannot be provided on this site, there will be a significant improvement on the existing conditions (e.g. 100% impervious site). The applicant says they are obtaining a traffic impact study, and it will be included in their full package submittal at a later date

City of Batavia Planning and Development Committee tabled the project until next meeting. Albright says they hope to submit the site plan next week in time for the next meeting, which is August 18th at 6p.m.

In other Planning and Development Committee news, alternate member Gail Tenney is now a full member taking the place of John Ognibene on the committee, and Jay Steinbrenner is the new alternate member. Both were appointed by City Manager Rachael Tabelski.

File photo-Brian Quinn

The Committee also approved the minor subdivision to allow for the conveyance of property from the City of Batavia to the Batavia Development Corporation at 10 West Main Street. The county agreed to the proposal July 9th saying that the proposed subdivision should pose no significant county-wide or inter-community impact.