Commission approves drive‑through pickup restaurant with conditions for glazing and landscaping

The Planning Commission approved a special land use and site plan for a new drive‑through pickup restaurant at 3503 28th Street SE in the Centerpointe Shopping Center, subject to several conditions intended to protect pedestrian connectivity and meet storefront transparency standards.

Staff described the proposal as a 2,449‑square‑foot single‑story building with an app‑based prepaid pickup (no menu board or speaker) and a drive lane wrapping the building. The site will provide parking and expects modest queuing (staff cited a maximum of three vehicles queued in the applicant’s analysis). "Orders will be placed and prepaid remotely," staff explained, and the city traffic engineer concurred with the queuing analysis.

Commissioners asked the applicant to increase transparency on the drive‑through elevation to meet glazing requirements and to add pedestrian crossings and additional landscaping to mitigate the west‑side drive‑through adjacency to parking. The applicant (Jason Blum, development director) agreed to work with the tenant to add more glazing. The commission approved the project with conditions that include adding windows to meet the transparency standard, planting three medium canopy trees in a center island, adding north‑side façade mitigation landscaping, and adding a pedestrian crosswalk across the drive‑through lane. The motion carried by voice vote.