Kendall County Times

At its April 10 meeting, the Montgomery Village Board discussed a proposed Starbucks at the Lot 7 property in the Odgen Hill commercial subdivision. 

The board received a recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission on a variance request for the development, which includes some setback exceptions, parking and landscape changes, and the positioning of its trash area.

Community development director Sonya Abt told the board that the development is on a vacant site which would allow for a drive-thru. The building has frontage on Hill Avenue but would mainly be accessed by the internal Ogden Drive.

Abt explained that the developer wants to aid traffic flow by swapping the front and back of the building. This prompted the variance requests for exceptions to building frontage transparency requirements, and yard setback variances for the front and rear yard. 

“Additionally, they need some variances from some of our parking requirements, specifically related to driveway width." Abt explained. "Since this is a drive-thru and it's going to have a one-way traffic movement through it, they're asking to have 24- to 25-foot-wide entrances and exits so that you can have the stacking as well as the bypass lane to be able to get by, and not be holding up traffic on that exit if somebody needs to make a left-hand turn or being kind of stuck by the drive-thru stacking, although they are meeting their minimum stacking requirements."

The council did not have any issues with the variance requests as they preferred the vacant lot to be occupied.

The council asked some clarifying questions about the drive-thru and parking, which they were assured met the approval of the fire department for all safety levels. 

The board was told this would be a drive-thru only Starbucks, with no indoor seating. It is for drive-thru and mobile pick-up orders only, a newer concept from the corporation. 

With the recommendation for approval from the commission, the board approved the plan to move forward, and discussed giving the Starbucks a signage exemption to be able to place signs on both sides for increased viewability.

The board uploaded a livestream of its public meeting to the village’s YouTube channel.

In other business, the board discussed paying approximately $50,000 to purchase office furniture for the village police department’s new records area from KI Furniture.

The board will meet again at 7 p.m. on May 8 at Village Hall at 200 North River Street.