Dunkin’ Donuts Planned for Former Hardee’s Site in Wheeling
Plans are in the works for the former Hardee's restaurant site on National Road in Wheeling to be razed and for a new Dunkin Donuts restaurant to be constructed at this location.
Eric Ayres
Plans are in the works for the former Hardee's restaurant site on National Road in Wheeling to be razed and for a new Dunkin Donuts restaurant to be constructed at this location.
Eric Ayres
Trending
Plans are percolating behind the scenes for the former Hardee’s restaurant site on National Road in Wheeling, which promises to soon become home to a new Dunkin Donuts location.
Heartland Restaurant Group LLC plans to raze the old Hardee’s building and construct a 2,000-square-foot building for a new location of the popular global coffee and donut chain. Plans for the new building at 855 National Road include dine-in seating for 16 patrons along with space for five to seven employees working during the busiest shift.
During next Monday night’s meeting of the Wheeling Planning Commission, representatives from Heartland are scheduled to present a site plan for the new restaurant. The venture seems to be on a fast track for completion, as the company is seeking both a preliminary and final site plan review and approval from the Planning Commission.
The company is also scheduled to appear before the Board of Zoning Appeals at 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 16 in Wheeling for a hearing on a request for a variance in regard to the minimum parking requirement for a typical restaurant of this size. Heartland Restaurant Group LLC is hoping to get approval to construct parking for 16 vehicles on the site as opposed to the minimum standard of 21 spaces calculated for an eating and drinking establishment. A few other minor variances are also being sought to accommodate the plan, including variance relief from an article pertaining to a requirement of having two deciduous trees within the interior of the parking area.
Plans call for 11 parking stalls that are 90-degree stalls and five parallel parking stalls, one of which will be designated as an accessible parking stall. There will be a drive-thru with one standard lane and one bypass lane for mobile app order patrons, according to the plans.
City staff has conditionally recommended simultaneous approval of both the preliminary and final site plan applications.
During another recent meeting of the Wheeling Planning Commission, plans were presented to bring another "national coffee chain" - which developers were not yet ready to officially name - to a site across the street from where the new Dunkin Donuts location the site of the former A.C. Buffet Restaurant at 942 National Road near CVS Pharmacy.
An official from Bohler Engineering, representing property owner Kellbenn Inc., appeared for a site plan review and zone change request in November. Plans called for demolition of the old buffet building and a reconfiguration of the parking lot and access off of National Road. The ink on the contract for the coffee vendor was "not totally dry" at the time of the hearing, but so far, plans apparently have received a green light from the city.
Hardee’s had operated at the National Road location in Wheeling since the 1980s. It had been a burger joint since 1962, when it first opened as Burger Chef before becoming Hardee’s.