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Coalescence Coffee seeks expanded banquet, alcohol sales and live entertainment permissions
Summary
An existing restaurant and previously authorized banquet space in the Park Place area asked the Planning Commission to expand live-entertainment permissions, increase banquet capacity options and allow alcohol sales in more of its assembly areas; staff recommended approval with conditions and capacity limits tied to specific floor-plan options.
The owner of Coalescence Coffee asked the Planning Commission to expand permitted uses at its industrial-turned-commercial space in Park Place to allow a larger banquet hall, additional live entertainment and alcohol sales in more assembly areas.
Staff said the property — in an Industrial Light (IL) district and within the Norfolk & Western Historic Overlay — previously held a conditional-use approval (CUP) for one banquet space and limited capacity. The current application seeks to authorize expanded entertainment and banquet operations across up to three internal assembly spaces and to formalize alcohol sales and live entertainment allowances for those spaces.
Staff presented four floor-plan layouts and detailed capacity calculations for each layout, and said the largest banquet configuration would yield a 104-seat indoor banquet with a total combined occupancy up to 354 when all assembly spaces are counted together; the restaurant-only configuration would have a combined capacity of 254. Staff recommended approval with conditions tying permitted occupancy to the chosen floor-plan option and maintained existing operating hours; alcohol and entertainment hours were proposed to remain within previously approved limits (roughly 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. for entertainment and similar alcohol windows).
Staff member (planning staff) said the site has operated since about 2020–2021 and previously held a CUP for one banquet space; the applicant seeks to expand entertainment across the other gathering spaces and to increase assembly capacity for certain layouts. “If they're operating in one capacity, in the restaurant capacity, it'll be options 1 or 2,” staff said while showing layout diagrams and occupancy numbers. “So when they're operating as a restaurant, their capacity is 254 of all the spaces….”
Why it matters: the proposal would increase the number of patrons allowed on-site during events and broaden the range of entertainment types the venue could host; staff emphasized that previous operations generated few complaints and recommended approval, noting the venue previously operated at smaller capacities without significant issue.
What the commission heard: staff recommended approval with conditions and limits tied to detailed occupancy calculations; commissioners had clarifying questions about how the capacity would be managed and how the different layouts would be enforced in conditions. There was no recorded final vote in the transcript; staff said they would hand out the detailed table in the staff report and that conditions had been refined for clarity.
Ending: Staff recommended approval with an expiration (staff suggested an expiration tied to the scope of change), and the commission moved the item forward for public hearing processing and subsequent council consideration as required by the CUP process.
