Plans for a Chick-fil-A location in Coldwater stalled as the Coldwater Zoning Board of Appeals denied the design proposal.  

At its March 18 meeting, the zoning board reviewed an exception for the proposed layout of the Chick-fil-A that would be located at 396 East Chicago Street, 31 minutes from campus. The nearest Chick-fil-A is currently 41 minutes away, in Jackson. The layout was created by the PEA Group, a design company located in the Midwest.

“We’ve gone through multiple iterations on the site,” Leslie Accardo, the PEA Group representative for the Chick-fil-A design, said at the meeting. “To find one that addresses staff concerns, traffic flow, delivery trucks, and ensure that our customers are able to navigate the site easily.”

According to the ZBA, this layout needed approval from them because it requires an exception for the property’s setback, which is the closest a building can legally get to its property line. Setbacks prevent the construction of buildings on the edge of the road.

“We are doing our due diligence on the other side of this with the planning commission to make sure that traffic and circulations and all that stuff, are being met with the ordinance. So we’ll continue to do that part on that side, but a restaurant without a drive-through is a permitted use in this district. But what requires special land use is the drive-through,” said Planning Director Bob Hawley.  

Accardo explained that the current setback for this location is 25 feet, but the current design requires a setback of 15 feet to account for a second drive-through lane. Getting an exception for the setback of a business is called a variance.  

Accardo spoke at the meeting about why a variation was being requested.  

“One of the reasons we’re asking for the variance today is that we did hear some concerns from staff about traffic stacking, parking, accommodating all of Chick-fil-A’s uses, and really trying to maximize the amount of drive-through length that we can provide on the site,” Accardo said.

She said the variance would go to the flex lane of the drive-through, which is a second lane that is used during busier hours.  

“They call it a flex lane, which is based on if they’re super busy,” Accardo said. “They’ll use both lanes for ordering and for food delivery. If they’re not quite as busy, they might just use only one lane for ordering or they might use two lanes as you enter. You would order and then funnel everyone down to a single lane and deliver the food in a single lane as you reach the delivery canopy.” 

The members of the ZBA said they did not think this variance met the criteria required to justify approving this exception. The criteria, called the five prongs, are unique property condition variances needed for more than a financial gain, avoidance of substantial harm to neighboring properties without variance, special privilege, minimum variance necessary. ZBA Chair Gordan Swan said he did not feel the variance met the first prong: unique property conditions. 

“A trapezoid is not that unusual a site,” he said. “It’s flat. It has access on all the sides. No, there’s nothing unique about it that would set it apart.” 

After going through each prong, the ZBA members voted to deny the request for variance, requiring PGA Group to make a new design that meets zoning requirements.  

“Every time that I’ve been around a Chick-fil-A restaurant, traffic is a problem, and that’s one of the busiest corners in this town, one of the most dangerous. I mean, people get killed there annually. I don’t know if getting a high-traffic thing there with this cantilever up near the sidewalk is such a good idea. It is close,” Swan said.