A new fast food restaurant is expected to open in Plant City, after the Board of Adjustment voted Tuesday, Jan. 27, to approve a variance to parking requirements in the city code.
Bravotampa has filed preliminary plans for a Burger King on the west side of Thonotosassa Road at Goldfinch Drive.
The building will be about 3,100 square feet, and developers believe it will need just 34 parking spaces. But because of an August 2014 amendment to the city code, the new Burger King would be required to have at least 47 spaces.
The city code used to require one parking space per 100 square feet at any eating or drinking establishment. The currently wooded area that will become Burger King is part of a bigger parcel that includes the adjacent shopping center. The shopping center was built under the old requirements for parking.
In August 2014, an amendment was made to this section of the code, so that 1.5 parking spaces were required per 100 square feet.
The lot cannot be expanded to increase the parking area, because its four sides are occupied by roadways and a conservation easement. Bravotampa designed the Thonotosassa Burger King to be smaller than others, which would decrease the number of required spaces, but it did not make enough of a difference.
Phillip Scearce, director of the Planning and Zoning Division, made the amendment to the code last summer.
“I was looking at parking and bringing it closer to what other codes have, but I’ve been doing some research and there are definitely some different standards for fast food and there are different standards for sit-down (restaurants),” Scearce said. “I have to admit, 47 spaces is quite a bit for a fast food restaurant.”
Bravotampa applied for a code variance so that Burger King could open with just 34 spaces.
At Plant City’s established stand-alone Burger King on James L. Redman Parkway, about 65% of sales are from the drive-through. This fits most Burger Kings’ figures of 60% to 70%.
Because of the high percentage of drive through sales, Mike Longley, a spokesman for Bravotampa’s parent company, Quality Dining, said fewer parking spaces would be necessary.
“The parking that we have on this site, we believe is adequate for the building and the amount of seating,” Longley said.
The board of adjustment voted unanimously to approve the variance, so that Burger King may operate with just 34 parking spaces.
Contact Catherine Sinclair at csinclair@plantcityobserver.com.