Dunkin' Donuts, Super Wal-Mart on the way in Batavia?
Batavia west-siders could soon have an easy option for getting coffee and a doughnut in the morning.
The Batavia community development committee Tuesday night approved plans for building a drive-through Dunkin' Donuts in a strip-style mall on the southwest corner of Randall Road and Wilson Street.
The eatery would go in the northeast corner of the building, in a space where a Schlotzsky's sandwich shop used to be. The building also contains a cigarette store, an optometrist, a hair salon, a Fannie May candy store and a CiCi's pizza buffet restaurant.
Drive-through traffic would be routed through the parking lot around the building, which has tenants on its north and south faces. The window will be on the east side. The building is in an outlying corner of a larger center anchored by a Jewel-Osco store.
There is a doughnut shop in Batavia, in a strip mall on East Wilson. There are at least four coffee stores, but none have a drive-through.
The committee also approved plans to expand the three-year-old Wal-Mart store at Fabyan Parkway and Randall Road.
It will be converted into a Wal-Mart "supercenter," carrying fresh produce, meat and baked goods in addition to the frozen and dry grocery goods it already stocks.
The 41,000-square-foot addition will bring the building up to 194,000 square feet. (In comparison, the Wal-Mart supercenter that opened in March on Kirk Road in Aurora is 203,863 feet).
Construction won't start until the spring, because the company does not want to disrupt business during the holiday shopping season.
Both plans now go to the full city council for a vote Monday, Sept. 15.
Earlier in the evening, the committee sent plans for a shopping-and-office strip mall at Raddant Road and Wilson Street back to the plan commission. Committee members didn't like the look of the pre-cast concrete building.
"I don't think we have any other precast concrete in town. Everything else is masonry (on facades)," said committee Chairman David Brown, 7th ward alderman, who also thought the design needed to be "jazzed up."
"It's the same plopped-down strip mall that anybody is going to use to get the most out of a small piece of property," said Nelson. "It wouldn't take much to put a second story on it, develop some residential."
Saying there are properties to the west ripe for redevelopment, including the First Baptist Church building the city bought, Nelson called the area a gateway to that. "This is where it is all going to start," he said.