Commission OKs drive-through coffee at Winn-Dixie plaza despite planning-board concerns

The Ormond Beach City Commission voted to approve a redevelopment plan and two special exceptions allowing a drive-through Ilianos Coffee at 353 West Granada Boulevard, in the Winn-Dixie/Aldi shopping center, after a public hearing and discussion about circulation and parking.

Planning Director Steven Spraker told the commission the applicant sought a redevelopment plan because the project could not meet all standards in the land development code. "There are two items which they're requesting assistance with," Spraker said: reallocating an internal landscape buffer to other on-site buffers and waiving one vehicle stacking space in the drive-through lane. He added the planning board recommended denial by a 1–3 vote because of traffic concerns, including the lack of a deceleration lane on the state-controlled roadway.

The applicant's engineer, Christopher Gammier, said Ilianos Coffee is a small, locally grown franchise whose distinctive business model and peak-hour patterns reduce parking and traffic impacts compared with other retail uses. "The trips are just so completely different," Gammier said, describing morning coffee runs as short trips that often coincide with other destinations. He also said the shopping center exceeds the city's parking minimum: "The land development code requires 347 parking spaces. They're at 411 parking spaces, so they exceed the parking requirements."

Franchisee Trevor Hickman told the commission the operation's target drive-through service time is about 2½ minutes. "Typically, we're between that 2:15 to no more than 3 minutes," Hickman said, and added a second window on the east side helps handle large orders.

Commissioners split on the project. Commissioner Harold Briley said he remained concerned about internal circulation and safety, and registered the meeting's single no vote. Multiple other commissioners, including Commissioner Deaton, Deputy Mayor/Commissioner Tolland and Commissioner Sargent, said they were satisfied by staff and the applicant's changes to internal circulation and supported the exceptions. Commissioner Deaton urged native shade canopy plantings as part of the landscape improvements.

The commission approved Resolution 2025-30, the development order approving the special exception redevelopment plan for the Ilianos Coffee drive-through, by a 4–1 vote (Yes: Deaton, Tolland, Sargent, Mayor Jason Leslie; No: Briley). The recorded motion covered both the waiver of one stacking space and the landscaping reallocation; the commission discussed potentially voting on those two items separately during deliberations but ultimately took the combined vote.

The planning director told commissioners a deceleration lane along West Granada would be under the Florida Department of Transportation's control and the city could not force such a lane where right-of-way or existing alignment could prevent it.

The developer also agreed to raise the front buffers along West Granada and Orchard to code through a landscape betterment plan. Spraker said the site is in a redevelopment exception area, so traditional concurrency standards do not apply and no traffic study was required for the project's 800 square feet.

The commission closed the public hearing after the vote and welcomed the business to Ormond Beach.