Aldermen reject drive-through coffee at Brentwood Plaza amid traffic and safety concerns

Brentwood — The Brentwood Board of Aldermen voted 4-4 on Aug. 18, 2025, and failed to approve an amended site-development plan and conditional use permit for Brew Crew LLC to operate a drive-through coffee shop at the Brentwood Plaza, 8828 Manchester Road. The vote followed an extended discussion about traffic counts, queuing and internal circulation inside the shopping center.

The vote was split: Aldermen Goad, Sims, Lochmiller and Harder voted yes; Aldermen Plovka, Tice, Gould and Erger voted no, producing a tie that defeated the measure. The proposal was introduced as bill 65-63.

The dispute centered on whether the coffee shop’s drive-through queue would worsen backups at nearby intersections and create pedestrian-safety risks inside the Schnucks-anchored shopping center. Sean (consultant) told aldermen that counts for the traffic study were collected in July and that the study estimated "the amount of new trips that are expected to be out in the morning is only 26 trips" while noting an additional roughly 70 pass-by trips. "If all of our new trips went through that intersection... it's 26 in and out," Sean said, adding that an intersection that already carries "2 to 3,000 cars in the peak hour" would not noticeably be affected by 26 vehicles.

Aldermen who opposed the project said the July counts understate school-year congestion. Alderman Tice said she sees "significantly higher traffic" during the school year and pointed to backups that extend to the railroad tracks near Brentwood Park. Alderman Plovka said he had ‘‘serious concerns’’ about the reliability of the analysis and cited prior projects where predicted traffic impacts proved worse in practice; he noted problems at the Brentwood Promenade and other locations. Alderman Goad and Alderman Plovka raised pedestrian-safety concerns where customers would queue and cross the shopping-center circulation to reach Schnucks and other stores.

City and consultant staff described queue length modeling and on-site measures the applicant proposed. Sheila (consultant) told the board that queueing is an important metric for coffee shops and that, based on the applicant’s data, the longest observed queue in a comparable store was 14 vehicles while the proposed site had room for 23 queueing vehicles. She also noted that coffee-shop traffic often includes a large share of pass-by trips — customers already traveling through the area — rather than brand-new trips.

Aldermen also questioned internal circulation changes shown on the plan: proposed landscape islands and restriped aisles would remove parking stalls and create narrower drive aisles, several aldermen said, and could complicate movements when emergency vehicles — for example, a fire truck that occasionally parks in the drive aisle — are present. "If we're forcing all this traffic down that driveway... and you've got Rock Hill's fire truck or Brentwood's fire truck, what is that going to do for the internal circulation?" one alderman asked.

Board members discussed limiting special promotions or event days that could create exceptional queues and suggested traffic-management measures such as cones or signage if the business ran unusually busy promotions.

Outcome: The motion to perfect bill 65-63 failed on a 4-4 roll call (Goad, Sims, Lochmiller, Harder — yes; Plovka, Tice, Gould, Erger — no). No alternate conditions or referral to a committee were adopted during the meeting.

Why it matters: Aldermen said the vote reflects concern about morning and event-day congestion on Manchester Road and Brentwood Boulevard, as well as safety inside a high-traffic shopping center that serves neighborhood trips, grocery customers and drive-through patrons. The applicant may return with revised plans or mitigation measures, but the board took no formal direction to staff to negotiate changes during the meeting.

Discussion (selected): - Traffic counts were collected in July; board members said summer counts underrepresent school-year peaks. - Consultant estimated 26 new morning trips and roughly 70 pass-by trips for the proposed coffee use. - Queue capacity at the proposed site was stated as 23 vehicles; comparable locations had maximum queues of 14 vehicles in the operator’s data. - Several aldermen raised concerns about internal circulation, removal of parking stalls for islands, pedestrian crossings, and the potential for emergency-vehicle interference with queuing.

What’s next: No follow-up motion or referral passed at the meeting. The applicant or staff could choose to revise the plan and return to the board. The transcript shows the conversation ended with the motion failing and no additional direction.