It wasn’t a “yes” or a “no,” but a “let’s take a closer look,” for a plan to put a drive-thru coffee shop at the corner of Sunshine Street and Jefferson Avenue.
The Springfield City Council voted 5-3 on Nov. 28 to table, or to delay, its decision on a conditional use permit application for a 7 Brew Coffee franchise location. Reding Management’s property is zoned for limited business use, but it can’t open the drive-thru lanes critical to the 7 Brew business model without the permit — a permit that will wait until at least Dec. 12, and could still be voted down altogether for a third time.
Reding Management owns 1.08 acres of land on the southeast corner of Sunshine and Jefferson. The property sits across Jefferson Avenue from Jefferson Avenue Baptist Church, and across Sunshine Street from Sunshine Elementary School. The site plan calls for driveway placement on Jefferson Avenue and to the east on Roanoke Avenue, but no driveway on Sunshine.
The 5-3 vote to table the discussion to Dec. 12 broke down with Matt Simpson, Abe McGull, Heather Hardinger, Andrew Lear and Mayor Ken McClure voting “Yes,” and Mike Schilling, Craig Hosmer and Richard Ollis voting against tabling the 7 Brew permit bill. Simpson said he didn’t want to draw out the process any further, but felt a little more time could allow for Reding Management and the Springfield Planning Department to reexamine traffic making left turns off of and onto Jefferson Avenue, which was Simpson’s final safety concern.
“I think we’re very close here,” Simpson said. “I think it seems like there are still some concerns about a very specific kind of traffic aspect that the applicant is amenable to working on, and I think if we can get resolved, that we can move forward.”
Councilman tired of debating
Neighboring property owners brought up concerns with traffic stacking up south from the Sunshine and Jefferson traffic light. McGull said he wouldn't vote for the permit application in its present form, with driveways on Jefferson and on Roanoke, but he might vote for a traffic diagram with a driveway from Sunshine Street directly into 7 Brew's three drive-thru lanes.
“The residents have said that they’re not interested in affecting both of the, I guess, secondary arteries,” McGull said. “I think that if we could look at some sort of way we could actually enter on Sunshine or eliminate one of the secondary arteries — I talked to the developer of this project; he said he’s open to that, and I think the citizens would be open to that.”
The neighboring residents also shared concerns about 7 Brew customers cutting through residential streets, heightened danger for pedestrians — especially children coming and going from Sunshine Elementary — people coming and going at all hours, and loud music pumped through outdoor speakers as reasons they opposed the project.
Hosmer said he intended to vote against the permit, and also voted against tabling the vote because he feels too much time has already passed.
“This is the second time it’s been before us, it’s time for — Planning and Zoning has rejected it three times,” Hosmer said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to keep going over, and over and over again over the same issue.”
Ollis said entrance points on Jefferson and Roanoke, as the diagram shown on Nov. 28, is safer than putting a driveway on Sunshine as McGull suggested. He said he planned to vote in favor of the permit.
“Frankly, it’s a commercial corridor from Highway 65 all the way out almost to Republic and beyond,” Ollis said. “This lot has sat vacant for years if not decades with no suitable use. Our staff has done, in my estimation, yeoman work on looking at this from traffic, from all sorts of aspects, and these are engineers who do this for a living, and so I respect what they’ve come up with.”
Flavor combinations and traffic counts
7 Brew Coffee is based in Arkansas, and most of its 22 stores are owned by franchisees. According to its website, 7 Brew was “born from a desire to change drive-thru coffee into a fun, mind-blowing experience for everyone.” It serves coffee, sodas, smoothies, shakes and energy drinks. The first 7 Brew in Springfield opened in December 2021, according to the company’s website.
The Springfield City Council voted to rezone the Sunshine and Jefferson property from residential to a limited business district earlier in 2022.
The 7 Brew at the corner of Glenstone Avenue and Kearney Street in Springfield had 388 cars over a 17-hour span that the store underwent observation by traffic engineers. A “trip,” as defined in the planning documents, is any instance of a vehicle entering or leaving a property. A driver pulling into 7 Brew, buying a drink and then driving off the property makes two trips, according to the definition of “trip.”
“The highest volume was the 11 o’clock hour,” Springfield Assistant Director of Public Works Martin Gugel said. “We plugged it into our existing traffic models, looking specifically at the intersection of Jefferson and Sunshine, and it did not impact the level of service with 776 brand new trips.”
“Level of service,” Gugel explained, is the average amount of time it takes a vehicle to pass through an intersection, whether it’s through traffic or turning traffic
The Springfield Planning and Zoning Commission took Reding Management’s latest proposal for the Sunshine and Jefferson property on Oct. 6, and voted 5-1 to recommend denial of a conditional use permit for drive-thru business operations. City staff members recommended approval.
