Recently the Greater Chatham Alliance updated the Chatham neighborhood about the possibility of a local franchise operator to relocation from the current location to another along 87th Street. We've talked about this location at 87th/Vernon earlier this year and Worlee wrote about this at length earlier this month as well.
Dunkin Donuts??Franchise request to relocate from their Cottage Grove location to 87th Street.Well I didn't want to copy and paste the whole text on this subject, but if this was a possibility many are concerned with the activity and trash of a 24-hr store operating in their community. All the same it appears they're coming so what else may come of this?
The owners of Dunkin Donuts on Cottage Grove want to move to a vacant lot/ building location they own at 87th & Vernon.
At our June meeting, residents who live in this vicinity brought this to our attention for discussion?-and they were plenty of pros and cons on the situation. Why?
It seems the Dunkin owners want to have a 24 hour franchise and some neighbors don't want that round-the-clock activity. Or they would prefer to see a different type of restaurant since we have three (3) Dunkin Donuts and a Dat's Donut in our community already.
So these residents feel the community should push for a more upscale, fast-food chain like Chipolte or Portillo's.
Other residents feel that if a barrier was put up to separate residents from the 24 hour franchise activity, then our community would have, at least, an operating business in the location instead of a vacant building / property.
Let's tell it all. First, the owners are making an additional $100,000 investment to remediate the site as the site is environmentally contaminated. We have already seen the negative effects that environmental contamination does as the residents on the south side of 87th street between King Drive and Eberhart have had to have their backyards dug up after the gas tanks leaked from the station at 87th King Drive.
ReplyDeleteWe have waited 30+ years for the "perfect" business to arrive at 419 E 83rd which is in the same situation. The reality is most commercial real estate advisors advise their clients to steer clear of brownfield sites and financial institutions will not lend on a brownfield site that does not a clean environmental report. At this point neither 419 E 83rd nor 87th Vernon can produce a clean report. All the offers that have come on 83rd have been the same "janky" businesses that the community has said NO to, auto repair, car wash, churches, etc. They all come with a stipulation that the taxpayers pay for the environmental cleanup.
So while Dunkin Donuts is not the "healthy: business that has been asked for, no Whole Foods, Mariano's or others have jumped at that site and there has not been a indication that they will.
Let the facts be known and allow the residents who live in the immediate areas including those who do not belong to either Chatham community organization give their input and the idea will either fly or die, but giving half the story and slandering people on Facebook and other social media sites is disrespectful to those who you slander as well to the residents in the area who you apparently believe are not capable of making an intelligent decision based on facts.