Panda Express and CAVA Headed to Queen Street
Southington is set to get two new fast-food restaurants on Queen Street, as the Planning and Zoning Commission approved plans Tuesday night to fill the empty site where Plan B once operated near the I-84 westbound exit.
CAVA - not to be confused with Cava Italian Restaurant on West Street - is a fast-casual chain that serves pita wraps, grain bowls, salads and other Mediterranean-inspired eats. The nearest CAVA location is in Newington.
The other restaurant on the property, which will be nearly the same size as its neighbor, is Panda Express, a fast-food restaurant with Chinese-American offering. The next closest Panda Express location is in Milford. The Southington branch will be the first drive-thru for the company in Connecticut.
The site’s developers returned to the committee on Tuesday night with plans that had been slightly altered since their last appearance in order to accommodate changes requested by commissioners.
“We did add a bike pad for six bikes. The requirement is three bike spots, but these are to address town comments, given the close proximity of the trail that's located west along Spring Street. In addition, we're converting one of the ADA accessible spots to a van-accessible spot,” said Paul Rodriguez of Solli Engineering.
Rodriguez also addressed concerns related to the landscaping of the property, which is close to the exit of I-84.
“We added a lot of landscaping around the building, as well as the islands, and added a tree along Queen Street as well. Our property does butt right up to the right-of-way on Queen Street, but we took advantage of the green space that we had to landscape,” said Rodriguez.
The development team also presented their traffic impact study, which showed that the site will generate an average of 93 trips during weekday evenings. Additionally, between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm on Saturdays, it would generate 160 new trips.
The study did not account for the existing “do not block” striker area in place at the
Chili's entrance, which means traffic might flow more efficiently than the analysis predicted.
“It does not account for the fact that there's a 30-foot-wide 'do not block the box' striker that's been placed there specifically to leave a gap in the vehicular queue there, so that cars can get out,” said engineer Luke Mauro. “I can't say what the actual levels of service would be, but it's likely going to operate better than what the analysis shows.”
The drive-thru component of the property was included in the traffic study; however, the Panda Express location would still be expected mainly to receive customers inside the storefront.
“We don't expect Panda Express to operate like a McDonald's or a Wendy's would,” said Mauro. “I'm not aware of a Panda Express drive-through in the state of Connecticut, but we would expect the traffic is probably not going to be in the realm of what McDonald's or Wendy's would have... We're planning on a more fast-moving drive-through.”
