City Planning Commission likes Hy-Vee plans for new Cedar Rapids store

Kum & Go got a murky message and Hy-Vee Food Stores a clear one from the City Planning Commission on Thursday, as both businesses are seeking zoning changes to allow them to build new stores.

Kum & Go wants to build a new convenience store on Mount Vernon Road SE at Memorial Drive, at the site of the current Vernon Inn restaurant. The company's plan calls for it to buy four homes next to the restaurant and demolish them so it can expand the restaurant site for a convenience store.

Hy-Vee plans to build a new store plus convenience store and carwash west of C Avenue NE at the spot where the city plans to build a four-lane extension of Tower Terrace Road. Hy-Vee does not intend to build the store for a few years, until Tower Terrace Road is in place at least to Alburnett Road, Marion, to the east, or to Council Street NE to the west, store representatives told the commission on Thursday.

Thirteen neighbors told the commission that the Vernon Inn site was fine for a restaurant or a bank branch, but an awful spot to expand the existing commercial footprint for a 24-hour convenience store. One neighbor called the Kum & Go proposal “a monstrosity.” The store will hurt the character of the long-established residential neighborhood next to it and will exacerbate traffic dangers on busy Mount Vernon Road SE near two elementary schools, the neighbors said.

The six members of the nine-member commission who attended Thursday's meeting clearly were split 3-3 on the Kum & Go proposal, though some commission members did not make their votes clear when two formal votes were taken, one to change the city's future land use map and one to change the zoning on the portion of the Kum & Go site that now has houses on it.

In a commission discussion that came after the vote, commission members Allan Thoms, Scott Friauf and Lana Baldus said they approved the Kum & Go proposal while Scott Overland, the commission's chairman, and members Carletta Knox-Seymour and Gloria Frost said they opposed it.

Overland said Kum & Go's proposed change for the site was “too intensive” for the residential neighborhood next to it, and he said that permitting it would be a prelude to more houses on Mount Vernon Road SE coming down in the face of additional commercial “creep.”

Knox-Seymour said she did not like the thought of removing four homes to make way to the Kum & Go proposal, and Frost said she had concerns about the what access into and out of the store on Mount Vernon Road SE might do to existing traffic problems and how that might harm the neighborhood.

The three who sided with Kum & Go noted that their support came with a requirement that the city traffic engineer come up with an acceptable traffic plan for the proposed “right-in-right-out-only” access to and from the store on Mount Vernon Road SE. The main access to the store will be on Memorial Drive SE.

Thoms argued that the piece of Mount Vernon Road SE already is mostly commercial and that Kum & Go would provide adequate buffering between the store and the neighborhood. Friauf said the store wouldn't make the existing traffic problems on Mount Vernon Road SE any worse.

Phil Hoey, real estate development representative for Kum & Go, told the commission the company doesn't invest $4 million in a property if it doesn't think there is strong demand for a convenience store on the site. He said the store would look better than the stores of Kum & Go's competitors. He also said the company's plans came with water-management strategies that would improve water problems that neighbors now say they face.

The City Council will take up the matters on Jan. 10, city officials said.

On the Hy-Vee question, the commission voted 6-0 to support a change of zone for property west of C Avenue NE for the new Hy-Vee store. The commission had tabled the matter last month out of concerns, not about Hy-Vee's plans, but about developer Butschi Real Estate Co.'s plans to develop additional pieces of the property.

Neighbors across from the Butschi's 30 acres of property again asked that he retain a three-acre piece across from their homes for residential development. However, the commission was satisfied that a berm would provide an adequate buffer. The three-acre parcel of the 30-acre parcel also will be restricted to more neighborhood-friendly commercial development.