The Lincoln City Council on Monday approved a zoning change needed to let Scooter’s Coffee build a drive-thru location near 10th and Van Dorn streets, despite traffic concerns of some neighbors.
Tim Gergen, with Clark & Enersen, the design firm working with Scooter’s, said the current plan for the site will generate 70% less traffic than an original plan.
Sixteen years ago, the original site plan for the block bounded by Van Dorn Street, Hill Street and Ninth and 10th streets included a coffee shop with a drive-thru, a fast-food business with a drive-thru and a strip mall on the southern part of the block.
Instead, AutoZone now sits where the original coffee shop would have been, and Scooter’s wants to build a drive-thru on the northern portion of the lot.
Until the council vote, the zoning included several restrictions on the land, including no drive-thru businesses on the northern end of the lot.
Gergen said the updated site plan would include more landscaping, more green space around Scooter’s, increased distance from a nearby home from 70 to 125 feet and a fence to block headlight glare. The developers also would remove one access point to Hill Street.
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But Dorothy Zordel, who lives on Hill Street, said she didn't know why another coffee shop was necessary, and when AutoZone was built last year, it created such a mess she could barely get out of her driveway.
"You’ve got a neighborhood there,†she said. “Leave it that way, rather than lining someone’s deep pockets.â€
Scooter’s representatives had extensive meetings with neighbors, and the president of the neighborhood association told the City-County Planning Commission the business had made much-appreciated changes based on neighbors’ feedback, but the group would like to see a traffic study done on the area.
Gergen mentioned a traffic study showing Scooter’s would generate 84 automobile trips in the afternoon, 70% less than the earlier plans.
Councilwoman Sändra Washington asked if they had looked at morning traffic counts — when the bulk of the coffee-goers would likely come through the business.
Gergen said they hadn’t, and Washington made a motion to delay the vote until that could be done. The motion failed. The vote on removing the zoning restriction was unanimous.