Shoppes at Main and Maple seek SUP for a drive-thru

By Valerie Cury

The owners of the Shoppes at Main and Maple Avenue shopping center, located at 745 East Main Street in Purcellville, are planning to build a 5,000 sq. ft. restaurant in the location behind Walgreens. 

At the Feb. 16 Planning Commission meeting, the applicants, White Star Investments, asked for a Special Use Permit to allow for drive-thru use for the restaurant. The restaurant space is permitted in this area, which is zoned Mixed Commercial. The Special Use Permit requires a public hearing at the Planning Commission level and a recommendation to the Town Council, who will vote either to accept or deny the drive-thru addition. 

The drive-thru proposal would consist of two order boards with speakers and two lanes with a queue of 14 vehicles. As the applicant does not have a tenant for the space yet, the hours of operation are not yet known.

The shopping center currently has three drive-thru operations, which include a financial institution, a pharmacy, and a car wash.

The shopping center has four entrances located along North Maple Avenue and on East Main Street. 

The applicant is also proposing to build a permitted Medical Office building of up to 24,220 sq. ft., projected to be completed by 2024. The location would be in the back of the current shopping center.

Town resident Darleen Mowry said she opposed the proposed drive-thru part of the restaurant. “I believe we already have a traffic problem on Main Street. There’s just too much traffic on Main Street to even think of having a drive-thru restaurant where it is being proposed.”

Eric Mowry said, “They have not taken into consideration the traffic either on Main Street or in the parking lot itself.” He noted that with the hours of operation of a drive-thru taken into consideration, “it’s not a good idea.” He also said it wasn’t a good idea to bring “another mess with a drive-thru to Town” with housing around it.

Purcellville developer Casey Chapman weighed in, saying he thought “the application should be considered.” He didn’t think the drive-thru would have any “traffic significance.”

“The restaurant is already permitted – so some may not want to come in and get their food due to COVID,” he said.

Pat Nevin asked the Planning Commission “to be in charge. Do not leave it up to people who are building.” She encouraged the commissioners to consider “the widths of the roads,” as well as “the width of the parking spaces … so that we do not end up with another area that looks like it does within the Harris Teeter Shopping Center.”  

She reiterated that the shopping center has narrow roads and small parking spaces. “Don’t leave it up to the developer,” Nevin said.

Chair Nan Forbes asked how many cars are expected to come through with the drive-thru as opposed to a stand-alone restaurant? The project engineer replied, “We actually didn’t study that option, because it is not part of the proposal.” 

Commissioner Ron Rise Sr. pointed out that with the configuration of the drive-thru, a car would have to make a 180-degree turn to get aligned into the stack line. “It won’t be a good stack,” he said. It also would take multiple movements to get aligned into the drive-thru.

The queuing study used by the firm was done in 1995. 

Commissioner Nedim Ogelman said, “I hear you mostly saying the case here is [the traffic] is not going to get worse [than the Chick-fil-A] … but we are driven by this notion that we are trying to improve the health, safety, and welfare of our community.” 

Ogelman then asked how a drive-thru would improve “the health, safety, and welfare of our community?”

Matt Leslie, a land use planner with Walsh Colucci Lubeley & Walsh, said, “The conclusion here is that adding a drive-thru to this restaurant has a very minimal impact in the overall picture … Having this pad site in the shopping center increases commercial tax revenue … and having a new place to eat.”