Chick-fil-A Proposed Site Plan

Here are the draft plans for the proposed Belmar Chick-fil-A. The building sits on the corner of S. Vance and W. Virginia Ave, with the drive-through lane wrapping around the building. Drive-through patrons would order on the northeast corner and pick-up on the west side of the building.

You can see that the planned buffer between the drive-through and the residential property on the other side of S. Vance is a 3 foot screen wall, along with varied trees and other landscaping.

Although I would not want to live across the street from a drive-through fast food restaurant, the property is zoned 4-C, which is different from the rest of Belmar's PD (planned development) zoning. According to the City of Lakewood, 4-C allows for "larger commercial uses such as bowling alleys, shopping centers, supermarkets or museums." I would hope that anyone buying a home across the street from vacant 4-C land would go into it with their eyes open.

My concern is the vast amounts of parking that this plan calls for. Does a Chick fil-A really need almost 50 parking spaces? It's two thirds of the site, and no matter how well landscaped, it's a parking lot that will likely be vacant most of the time.

This is especially problematic when you consider the vast amount of under used parking that exits on the 1st Bank property immediately to the west of the Chick-fil-A site.

Oceans of asphalt are simply not good urban planning, and not what we need if the intersection of Alameda and Wadsworth is truly to become downtown Lakewood.