Mount Prospect board approves Panera for Randhurst Village

Plans are moving forward for a new Panera Bread in Mount Prospect's Randhurst Village, despite one village leader's concerns over its proposed drive-through window.

The Mount Prospect Village Board on Tuesday approved the restaurant's plan for a 4,000-square-foot eatery along the Elmhurst Road, near the Pei Wei restaurant.

Rich Yaras, a representative of Randhurst Village developer Casto Lifestyle Properties, told village trustees construction is likely to begin in December on what will be one of just a handful of drive-through Paneras. There is one in Naperville and two in Northwest Indiana, he said.

Trustee Steve Polit cast the lone vote against the proposal, citing concerns that traffic in the 14-foot-wide drive-through lane would conflict with the four handicapped spaces to the north of the building.

“I don't have a problem with the parking lot being there,” he said. “I just have a problem with the drive-through traffic having access into the parking lot.”

The village's planning and zoning commission, which previously approved the proposal by a 4-0 vote, had rejected a plan that included a bypass lane near the pickup window on the south side of the building.

Yaras said he does not believe the drive-through would present a problem for people backing out of parking spots.

“With the amount of queuing that we have behind the building and on the south end of the building, we don't think there is going to be interference with that parking lot,” he said.

Yaras added that there was no consideration of moving the drive-through further north and having the parking lot separate from the drive-through entrance.

“What we were concerned with is having accessible stalls” as convenient and close to the building as possible, he said.