Cedar Rapids City Planning Commission advances Dunkin’ rezoning at Western Fraternal Life building

CEDAR RAPIDS — Plans to open another Dunkin’ in the Corridor were advanced last week by the Cedar Rapids City Planning Commission.

The new Cedar Rapids location is taking shape at First Avenue and 19th Street NE — the site of the former Western Fraternal Life Association building.

Rezoning from traditional residential flex district to traditional mixed use center district was needed to accommodate parking on the site, which encompasses 124 19th St. NE and 1903, 1907, 1911 and 1917 A Ave. NE.

The Western Fraternal building and much of its parking lot already is zoned to allow this activity. Though a structure at 124 19th St. NE that was once a church is included in the rezoning, no use has been proposed yet for that building.

The applicant, Burlington-based Reif Oil, owns Eastern Iowa Food Service, the franchise holder for the Dunkin’ restaurants in the area. Reif Oil owns the Western Fraternal building.

An opening date has not yet been determined, said Andrea Farley, franchise and operations manager of Eastern Iowa Food Service.

“We’re really excited to watch this project unfold,” Farley said. “We’ve had nothing but a good response so far.”

This project marks the ninth Dunkin’ venue in the Corridor. Eastern Iowa Food Service franchise’s first Dunkin’ in the Corridor, at 2905 Blairs Ferry Road NE, Cedar Rapids, opened in 2013.

At this venue, there will be both a Dunkin’ and a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop. Farley said there will be a bakery, so doughnuts will be made from scratch there. There also will be inside seating. Once complete, there will likely be about 25 to 30 full- and part-time employees, she said.

“We’re really excited that we can use an adaptive reuse strategy here by not tearing down the building,” Farley said of the Western Fraternal building. “It’s such a beautiful, stately building that we are really happy that our civil engineer team and our architect have helped us figure out how to transform it into a building that serves our needs that is totally unrelated to the original purpose of the building and probably unfathomable to the people who built it.”

The civil engineers for the project are with Hall and Hall. Rob Peck of Design Dynamics is the architect, Farley said.

Western Fraternal Life Association, a Cedar Rapids-based not-for-profit financial services organization, approved a merger with National Mutual Benefit, a Madison, Wis., life insurance society, in 2020. It closed its Cedar Rapids office in 2021.

Cal Norris, a nearby resident, and his wife asked the commission to reject rezoning plans. He was concerned about the development drawing foot traffic and changing the neighborhood dynamics and preferred the site house another commercial or office building.

“I have no problem with commercial projects going in there … but they tend to be office buildings,” Norris said. “They don’t tend to attract a lot of foot traffic or car traffic per say.”

Resident Andrea Lewerenz-Norris said she was concerned with the possibility of noise and light pollution and also asked the commission to oppose recommending rezoning.

“I can understand the want for the city to develop that a little bit more, but the residents of those neighborhoods enjoy a very quiet and peaceful neighborhood,” she said.

But the nine-member panel, with four members absent, unanimously supported recommending rezoning. The Cedar Rapids City Council is anticipated to consider advancing the rezoning request May 23.

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