Stamford Fast Food Restaurant Seeks 2nd Drive-Thru Lane To More Than Double Vehicle Capacity

STAMFORD, CT — A Stamford McDonald's is seeking to install a second drive-thru to increase efficiency and alleviate congestion at the popular location.

The Stamford Planning Board this week unanimously voted to refer the plans for the fast food restaurant at 1103 E. Main St. to the city's Zoning Board.

Raymond Rizio, a land use attorney representing McDonald's, appeared before the Planning Board on June 9 to request a zoning change for the property and a special permit to install the second drive-thru.

The McDonald's has been open at 1103 E. Main St. for about 50 years, according to Rizio, who noted the property has always been developed through variances. He said a zoning change from Commercial Neighborhood (CN) to Commercial Limited (CL) was more appropriate for the heavily-trafficked area and necessary for adding a second drive-thru.

The second drive-thru would more than double the current capacity from 11 vehicles to 23. Peak times routinely see 18 cars queuing in line, with traffic backing up to East Main Street, Rizio said.

"At least 70 percent of the business done at McDonald's, and certainly at least here, runs through the drive-thru. We're trying to give this the highest and best use for the neighborhood, the safest use for the neighborhood, and consistent with your master plan to reduce traffic congestion and increase safety," Rizio said.

The occupancy rate in the drive-thru area would decrease from 91 percent to 43 percent for breakfast, 127 percent to 61 percent for lunch, and 164 percent to 78 percent for dinner, Rizio said.

"It's incontrovertible that this is going to help the situation," he said.

Along with the second drive-thru, McDonald's is proposing to add a springboard canopy, pre-browse menu board, an outdoor digital menu board, reorganized parking and other related site improvements.

Rizio acknowledged that sometimes there's hesitation about rezoning a property, since future use is unknown. But he assured Planning Board members that McDonald's won't be going anywhere.

"There's no Trojan Horse here. It's a McDonald's, it's been a McDonald's for 50 years, and as long as people are eating hamburgers, it's going to remain a McDonald's. I don't think there's any risk that we're changing the zone and maybe there's a use that we might not like," he said.

After a brief discussion about the appropriateness of the CL Zone, Rizio agreed to a recommendation to remove "awkward" parallel parking spaces along East Main Street. There are 37 parking spaces for the McDonald's, while 33 are needed.

Additionally, the Planning Board recommended repurposing some of the parking spaces adjacent to the building in order to expand the patio and seating area.

"Though we recognize that typically the CL would not be in harmony with the comprehensive plan future land use category, that this is a fairly particular pre-existing use that is likely to continue to be this use well into the future," Planning Board Chair Jennifer Godzeno said.

Godzeno said the current requirements for parking for drive-thrus are "just outdated."

"I would certainly encourage zoning, alongside transportation, to look at our regulations and see if we can realize some reductions in that," Godzeno added.

"It seems this applicant, if the parking requirements had been even lower, would have been amenable to having even less parking and perhaps having that be repurposed to a grass planting strip or further tables and things, which I think would be the sort of thing that would make this more in harmony with the mixed-use zone."

The Zoning Board is expected to take up the matter in the coming weeks.