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McDonald’s drive‑through request at Virginia Parkway tabled after council raises safety concerns
Summary
An applicant seeking a specific‑use permit for a McDonald’s at 3300 Virginia Parkway reoriented its site plan and proposed a deceleration lane, but council members and staff expressed safety concerns about eastbound egress; the council reopened the public hearing and tabled the item for further engineering review.
Councilors on Sept. 2 heard a renewed specific‑use permit request for a McDonald’s drive‑through at 3300 Virginia Parkway, adjacent to Bonnie Wenk Park and a nearby Walmart. Planning staff said the applicant revised the site plan after a previous denial and recommended approval; the applicant said the new layout routes vehicle access through the Walmart parking area and includes 15 on‑site stacking spaces and a proposed deceleration lane on Virginia Parkway.
Leslie Ford, representing the applicant, told the council the parcel is roughly one acre and the McDonald’s concept is an "on‑the‑go" model intended primarily for third‑party delivery and drive‑through orders. Ford said the applicant worked with city engineering staff and Walmart on circulation adjustments and offered to construct a deceleration lane on Virginia Parkway as a mitigation measure.
Council members including Jirai Feltes and others said their chief concern was the safety of vehicles exiting the property eastbound onto Virginia Parkway, where sight lines and existing driver behavior have produced near misses. Lee Morris of McDonald’s suggested engineering treatments that could force right turns on exit or other physical modifications, but staff said any such change would require an engineering analysis and coordination with the property owner of the adjacent Walmart and possibly state or county authorities.
After public comment was closed, the council voted to reopen the public hearing to allow further discussion with engineering staff and then tabled the item to the next regular meeting so staff and the applicant could present possible traffic‑safety mitigations. The council did not adopt the SUP at this meeting; it instructed staff to evaluate proposed solutions such as modified striping, a deceleration lane, or pork‑chop/right‑turn channelization and return with an engineering recommendation.
The council’s action preserves the applicant’s ability to return with revised designs and engineering analysis; no final vote on the SUP was taken at the Sept. 2 meeting.
