PORT ST. LUCIE \u2013 The intersection of Becker Road and Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard here will soon see much more construction activity after the City Council approved special exception uses for both a convenience store\/gas station and fast-food restaurant for that busy corner during its Dec. 8 meeting.<\/p>\n
City officials have been planning the development of that corner and the rest of the Becker Road Corridor for several years now, crafting a special Becker Road Overlay District and specific criteria for commercial nodes at the key intersections. The Wawa convenience store, restaurant and gas station was the first business to open there a year ago this coming January on the southwest corner of the two busy roadways.<\/p>\n
Port St. Lucie Planner Daniel Robinson first introduced the convenience store\/gas station request for the needed special exception use for fuel sales without naming the company poised to give Wawa some competition. Even so, a Hometown News story published on Sept. 8, 2022 revealed plans by the 7-Eleven Corp. to construct a store on the same parcel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project before you is a special exception request to allow a retail convenience store and automobile fuel sales for a fuel service station within the General Commercial Zoning District,\u201d he said. \u201cThe property consists of 15.45 acres. For the site plan to be approved as proposed, this SEU request is required. The property is located at the northwest corner of Southwest Becker Road and Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard. The proposed development is comparable with the surrounding uses. The four corners of Port St. Lucie and Becker are commercial and located within the Becker Road Overlay Design Standards Activity Center Sub-District. The Planning & Zoning Board recommended approval with the proposed conditions at their regular Dec. 2 meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
During that same aforementioned 2022 P&Z meeting, the then board members also approved a variance request for a shared driveway so Wawa could build a station\/convenience store directly across the street from the 7-Eleven, but somehow the former beat the latter to the developmental punch. During the latest Council meeting, Kimley-Horn Engineer Sarah Anderson \u2013 who represented VRE PSL Landco, LLC, the applicant and property owner for both the store and restaurant \u2013 declined to make a separate presentation. Council members then voted unanimously without comment to approve the SEU. Robinson subsequently tackled the SEC request for an unnamed restaurant\u2019s drive-through facility at the same intersection and on the same parcel of land.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project before you is a special exception request to allow a drive-through service within the General Commercial Zoning District,\u201d he explained while pointing to an overhead map. \u201cThis is the four corners of Port St. Lucie Boulevard and Becker. The property is located at the northwest corner of Southwest Becker Road and Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard. The property\u2019s future land use and zoning are both general commercial. The site adequately addresses the criteria of the site requirements for the SEU application, and staff has recommended additional buffering as a condition of approval. The Planning & Zoning Board recommended approval at their Dec. 2 meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson immediately reintroduced herself but declined to make a separate presentation on that request as well. This time, however, Council members had a couple of comments, beginning with Vice-Mayor Jolien Caraballo.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we know what kind of restaurant it is?\u201d she asked as snickering broke out on the dais as if some members of the Board knew but weren\u2019t telling. \u201cI\u2019m looking at the stacking plan. If you\u2019re putting a Chick-fil-A, I\u2019m just wondering if we\u2019re having enough stacking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vice-Mayor Caraballo\u2019s concerns about the drive-through popularity of that particular chain were not without merit. Even though Chick-fil-A designs their properties with multiple pickup windows and\/or drive-through lanes, the restaurants are still known for causing traffic jams. Anderson attempted to alleviate those fears.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a Chick-fil-A,\u201d she answered. \u201cI think I can say that on the record. We did provide a stacking exhibit to Public Works and they have reviewed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Shannon Martin also had a question and a couple of comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we have a timeline on these two projects since they\u2019re from the same applicant?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as we can get through all the approvals, everyone wants to go fast,\u201d Anderson replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you know, people are going to be asking,\u201d Mayor Martin emphasized.<\/p>\n
Planning & Zoning Director Mary Savage-Dunham then chimed in with a bit of clarification.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next step for this will be the full major site plan with the landscape plan, hopefully coming to you in January,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a plat that goes with it, so we need to wrap that up. You\u2019ll get to see the whole site plan and a picture of the entire development.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to see how far along because we always get the questions,\u201d Mayor Martin responded. \u201cEveryone wants to know what\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The City Council then voted unanimously to approval the restaurant SEU request.<\/p>\n
Although no one officially offered a name for the fast-food restaurant in question that day, a request for a 13.3-foot variance on the same property on the P&Z Board\u2019s Dec. 2 agenda may have let the cat out of the bag prematurely. That agenda item described it as \u201ca setback for the McDonald\u2019s Building of 53.3 feet.\u201d Some of those board members that evening also humorously expressed the desire for the company to bring back its McRib Sandwich during that conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE \u2013 The intersection of Becker Road and Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard here will soon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":{"0":"post-96390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news","11":"tag-st_lucie"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}