I'm sure you would. Thank you.
Questions or comments from Planning?
uh yeah this is ron bednar city planning uh the property is indicated for commercial residential
mixed use on the city plan given the pre-existing conditions of the site
recommended crest variance be granted thank you mi 2024 004 362 6800 martins mill road i vote yes
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tynetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Tywin, my vote is yes.
Thank you very much, members.
Hillary, we're going to do six and ten together?
Yeah, I got it.
Okay, thank you.
You're welcome.
You're faster than me today.
We're going to do six and ten together.
So number six, MI 2024-004-387-1401-66th Avenue.
And number 10, MI 2024-004-449-1401-66th Avenue.
There's a letter of support from 10th Ward Democratic Committee, and Brett Feldman is the attorney.
we're coming back in as a panel sir mr chair when we vote on this matter um if we could vote on the
cases separately because um if if they are granted there is a proviso requested that is only applicable
to one one of the cases sure thank you good afternoon uh mr chairman members of the board
Brett Feldman, Team 35 Market Institute.
Can you spell your name for the stenographer?
Brett, B-R-E-T-T, Feldman, F-E-L-D-M-A-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Do you identify your client and their relationship to the property?
Yes, I represent McDonald's, USA, the applicant and the equitable owner of these two properties, of this one property for these two cases.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to wait to read another refusal or stipulate towards accuracy?
Have you emailed all the required documents that's needed to proceed with this case? Five days in advance of the theory?
I have.
thank you council please proceed and share your screen great let me just share my screen
Thank you, Council. Please proceed and share your screen.
Great. Let me just share my screen.
Can everyone see my screen?
Great. So, again, Brett Feldman, I represent McDonald's.
This is an application to take an existing, vacant, increasingly blighted takeout restaurant, redevelop it for McDonald's with all new landscaping, stormwater management.
There are, as I think Ms. Emerson said, there are two cases here.
There is one related to the use and structures, and then there's one related to signage.
I've submitted two exhibit packages, which I'd ask both to be incorporated into the record and for ease of presentation, I'll present on both at the same time, if that's acceptable to the board.
Please.
Great.
So this is the application, as I said, to redevelop this location to a McDonald's.
passed up the exhibits one through 17, one through 19. It's the, it's basically the same
package for both cases. And with me today is Alexander Ortiz. He is the area construction
manager for McDonald's. Our project engineers, Thomas Kreibel and Justin Klee from Polar
Engineering. And I'll be asking them to present testimony after, after I speak. So I'll get right
to it. Here are the refusals. We have done everything we can do to eliminate and reduce
down the refusals that are necessary. On the sign case, we have two small refusals. One is for
a freestanding sign. There's a small message board on the freestanding sign that is used,
as we'll explain, to communicate to our customers days and hours of operation when the restaurant,
whether the drive-thru is open or it's the lobby because we have separate hours for
both of those features, whether there's any specials. But otherwise, the freestanding
sign is entirely code compliant in terms of size and height. And then the second refusal on the
signage is for menu boards. If you've ever been into a drive-thru, you know you've got your main
menu board. And then sometimes there's a smaller board, order board right before that, that also
has the food items. McDonald's, in its extensive studies for the best way to operate a drive-thru,
believes you can have two menu boards. We're seeking two additional menu boards, these pre-menu
boards. So by the time you get to the menu board where you actually order, you know what you're
going to order, and you'll move through this as quick as possible. It's just like going into a
restaurant, which might, before you're seated, they might hand you the menu. So when you actually
get seated, you know what you're going to order. That's kind of how these menu boards work.
That's the only relief that we need for the signage.
And then for the use, as you'll see, we're taking an existing building that's been used as a pizza hut, that's been used as a Boston market.
And we're going to be doing a little demo, a little additions, but reusing that existing building.
So the only relief that we need ultimately is we're adding two drive-thru lanes.
And the second drive-through lane is within 20 feet of a property line, which creates a refusal, which will explain the why and what we've done to accommodate that.
But that's the only relief that we need in terms of the use and structure.
So let me get right to the site itself.
Here it is.
This is the intersection of 66th Avenue, Broad Street, and Old York Road.
This is a heavy commercial corridor, CMX 2.5.
WE ARE SURROUNDED BY OTHER SIMILAR USES UP AND DOWN BROAD STREET.
TO THE WEST IS A SELF-STORAGE FACILITY.
THERE'S A DUNKIN DONUTS RIGHT TO THE NORTH OF US.
THERE'S AN AUTO BODY FACILITY, USED CAR REPAIRS INCREASINGLY.
MORE OF A JUNK YARD RIGHT ABOVE THE DUNKIN DONUTS.
ACROSS THE STREET IS THE CVS.
LET ME JUST GO THROUGH SOME MORE OF THE PICTURES.
TO ORIENT EVERYONE, HERE IT IS.
This is the existing, the restaurant that's now there, but vacant, that we're going to reuse most of this building.
And here's the Dunkin' Donuts and the auto repair facility, just showing, and then a little bit farther up, the CVS, the other auto repair facilities and auto service facilities.
And then there's a self-service facility right to our left, to the west.
And then as you go at a street view, this might look more familiar.
This is the Boston market.
It's been closed for a little bit of time.
It was a pizza hub previously.
This gateway location is becoming blighted with trash.
I KNOW THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF EFFORTS TO TRY TO SECURE THIS BUILDING BECAUSE OF PEOPLE TRYING TO GET IN THERE, SO WE'RE HOPING OBVIOUSLY TO MOVE AHEAD AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
I know there's been a lot of efforts to try to secure this building because of people trying to get in there.
THAT'S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. THAT'S THE SELF-STORAGE FACILITY BEHIND US.
HERE'S THE EFFORTS TO SECURE THE BUILDING, THE SELF-STORAGE FACILITY.
HERE'S IT IN MAP VIEW.
AND HERE'S REALLY WHAT WE'RE LOOKING TO DO.
This is, you'll see, we're taking the existing building.
We need to demo a little bit of it.
We need to have a little bit of an addition.
And then we are going to significantly increase the landscaping.
We've worked for many months with city planning to meet the landscaping requirements here,
which were pretty extensive.
There'll be new stormwater management here.
They'll be repaved. It'll be new security lighting, new cameras here at the location.
And the biggest, you know, as far as for this case, the newest addition to the site are these
two drive-through lanes. And let me just say, we're using the existing ingress egress points
on 66th Avenue here. But these two drive-through lanes, drive-through lane one, drive-through lane
too. The restaurant right now does not have drive-thru lanes. We think that's a lot of the
reason why the last couple efforts have failed at this location in a post-COVID world. It's
absolutely critical that a fast casual restaurant that's kind of on its own location, not like an
inline downtown, has drive-thrus. So we have these two drive-thru lanes here. The reason for the
second drive-thru lane, we spent months and months with the streets department in order to make
sure that this location with the drive-throughs would have no impact on services on Broad Street,
no impact on services on 66th Avenue, and ultimately working with McDonald's expertise,
Bowler's expertise, Bowler engineering, and the streets department, it was determined that having
the two drive-through lanes would provide, we would be able to meet any capacity levels as far
as queuing in these drive-through lanes. There wouldn't be any impacts on the ingress, the egress,
the parking, the loading, the deliveries. So these are, you know, the two drive-thru lanes
that are proposed. As you can see here, we've added a lot of landscaping along Broad Street
that does not exist now, but there is a code requirement that a drive-thru lane, a staffing
lane, cannot be within 20 feet of this property line. And that is the only refusal that was
identified by L&I in terms of use and structures. But we do meet, you know, there's supposed
be a five foot buffer in landscaping we do and you can see there's significant increases in landscaping
here um turning to uh what you know here are the plans that the streets department approved showing
that as additional car queuing uh the two lanes that then merge into one um and i would i would
point out and we'll discuss this if necessary further there really was no other way to configure
these drive-through lanes um if you look in the crosshatch here there is a easement and this
crosshatch that goes from 66th Avenue right in the middle of our site through our site.
That's the egress ingress point for that self-storage facility to the west.
We, according to the easement, we cannot build over that. We cannot negatively impact that.
So that's why I assume when this restaurant was built 30 years ago or whatever it was at this
point now, it was placed in this position here. So we can't touch any of this, get anywhere near
that or change the configuration of the restaurant or the drive-thru lens to impact that to go over
that, which is why these drive-thru lanes needed to be where they were based off of all of our
calculations and the work with the streets department. Turning to what this will look like,
I will ask the representative from McDonald's to talk a little more about this, but this is
their most latest prototype with top-of-their-line finishes, all their new technology.
If you've been into a McDonald's, they've got the touchscreens inside. This is their latest
2024 design that you would see in any suburban area they tried to bring a lot
of architectural details to this gateway location and I'll ask eventually the
McDonald's representative to speak about that getting back to the relief
that's needed for the signage just just briefly here here is you can just see
here this is that three standing sign and they've got this small message board
right here um it's it's only i think three and a half feet high and that is what's used again to
communicate days and hours of operation whether breakfast is being served or not being served
where the lobby is open whether the drive-through is open again this is all
again this is all in an effort to make sure that this location operates as smoothly as possible
in an effort to make sure that this location operates as smooth
for ingress and egress people aren't coming in customers aren't coming in unless they need to
unless they really want to be there um and that that message board is is critical to that that
mission and uh it's it's a package that mcdonald's has used at other locations and then briefly the
pre-browse menu board which is this is right here this is the this is the the main menu board which
I think we've all seen if you went to McDonald's or any restaurant with a drive-thru and these are
these pre-brows that are positioned before the main menu board they're only 10 square feet and
that's again so if you're in that line in the drive-thru you'll have an opportunity to hopefully
make your selection so when you get to the menu board itself, you don't fumble like I do all the
time in a drive-thru. You order, and then you keep moving on again to make sure that there isn't any
impacts on circulation or any of the surrounding conditions. That is the relief that we're seeking
here. We have floor plans. This is a pretty small location. McDonald's is utilizing this to the best
extent possible but we have the floor plans here we can we can talk about that um these are the
approvals uh from the streets department that literally took months and months uh to make sure
that could you show we're having a hard time seeing that i'm sorry the floor plans we didn't see okay
Okay. Sorry. They're like schematic. Let me just go up here.
Can you see that now, Mr. Chair? Okay. That's the floor plans here.
Most of it is the restaurant, is the back of house operations and a small area here where you're
ordering. This is primarily a takeout location just because of the size of it. You will be able
to order inside the lobby, but there's also the drive-thru. Again, this was just the reality of
the location. You can certainly answer any more questions on that. The street department approval,
which took months and months, and ultimately with the two drive-thru lanes, it was deemed that there
wouldn't be any negative impacts as far as vehicular ingress or egress or level of service
on the surrounding streets those are all the materials this is showing mcdonald's actually
agreed to have a a special delivery vehicle a smaller delivery vehicle than you typically see
in order to make sure that they could and that's where all these lines are that they can make the
turning radius is uh in the in the in the parking lot uh to to supply the store um we worked closely
with the city planning commission i think you saw the landscaping it's a significant increase
AND LANDSCAPING, ESPECIALLY ALONG THAT FRONT AREA AND THE SIDES BASED OFF OF THE NEW, MORE
ROBUST LANDSCAPING REQUIREMENTS. AND HERE ARE ALL THOSE PLANS THAT WERE APPROVED. I'LL JUST
FLIP THROUGH THOSE HERE. WE ALSO WORKED WITH THE WATER DEPARTMENT. WE HAVE NEW STORMWATER
MANAGEMENT AT THIS LOCATION. EVEN THOUGH WE'RE USING A LOT OF THE EXISTING BUILDING,
THE EARTH DISTURBANCE STILL GOT US INTO A FULL STORMWATER MANAGEMENT APPROVAL HERE AT THIS
location. And that's the plans that you see here. Our ownership documents. I'll just flip through
this real quick. Our tax clearance with no tax balance here. This is the zoning history. It's
been a fast casual takeout restaurant for many, many years. And here is that zoning history over
time. The Pizza Hut, the Boston Market, and I think there might have been even other similar
USES BEFORE THAT, JUST FLIPPING THROUGH THIS REAL QUICKLY, OUR ZONING POSTERS, PROPERTY
WAS POSTED, I THINK YOU SAW THESE PICTURES ALREADY, OUR APPEALS, PROJECT INFORMATION FORM,
NOTICE OF MAILING TO THE RCO, WE DID MEET WITH THE RCO, WE ARE PLEASED TO HAVE A LETTER
of support from the RCO, the 10th Democratic Ward. We're in substantial agreement with the
proviso letter. We will absolutely, I know there are concerns from what I understand were mostly
around cleanliness and safety. As I mentioned, we will be having a full LED package for safety
and security here, a full set of cameras throughout the site, through the drive-thru
with the inside, the outside, near the trash storage facility. We will be having daily
commercial trash pickup. McDonald's always likes to hire in the neighborhood. We'd absolutely
love to work with the RCO and neighbors on hiring in the neighborhood here. And I think
our hours are relatively consistent with this.
Relatively consistent with this, we're looking to have hours in the lobby, 10, 11 o'clock,
and then we'd be looking for a little bit of additional hours for that drive-through,