Culver's to open in east Bradenton; new Home Depot clears final regulatory hurdle
BRADENTON -- Manatee County will get its third Culver's franchise location in a little more than a year after Bradenton officials on Wednesday approved the development. McCON Building Corp., on behalf of S&L Properties Bradenton LLC, received a unanimous green light from the city council to proceed with development at 4714 State Road 64 E.
The new 4,734 square-foot restaurant will sit on 3.25 acres of land. According to the site plan, there is another planned development for a 4,500 square-foot commercial building on the northwest corner of the acreage. However, there is no planned use being proposed at this time.
"The future development is not yet determined on that corner," said McCON Building owner Chris McGuire. "We'll have it built out in the next couple of years and whatever it will be, will be complementary to existing businesses. Right now, it's just not known what it will be."
Council members were hesitant to proceed without some kind of an idea of what the property owner plans, but city staff said when that is determined, it will come back before the council. S&L's registered agents are Chad Stevenson and Jeffrey Liegel, of Wisconsin, the home base of Culver's.
"I'm excited about all the stuff going on in Ward 4," said council member Bemis Smith. "This is just more indication of the excitement that is being brought to the city of Bradenton and all of the good things going on. We are just fortunate out east that we have the available space for these projects to take place in an efficient manner and an indication of the effort from everyone who has made Bradenton a business-friendly city."
Home Depot
Smith had more reason to be excited for his ward on Wednesday when Home Depot cleared the final regulatory hurdle to proceed with development plans fir a new store on 3 acres of land at 5700 State Road 64 E.
On Wednesday, city officials granted a special use application that now clears the way for the development process to begin. Edward Allen, site development consultant for Greenberg Farrow Architecture has been the point person for the project in working with city staff. Allen said site-plan development hit a small roadblock since the process first began when an unknown private easement was discovered on the property that allows an adjacent property owner access. However, Allen said some changes were made to the original site plan and access is now being granted.
"It's an undefined easement," said Allen. "It just says to provide access, but doesn't say what kind of access. We removed some parking to allow that access when we discovered the easement."
The approval came with several stipulations, to include approvals from Manatee County, which has jurisdiction over Morgan Johnson Road and may require improvements. Other stipulations are to complete the sidewalk on Morgan Johnson Road, ensure a bike rack is located at the future store and to install "thorny" vegetation around the store's perimeter to prevent vagrancy.
Allen said the new store won't look like the "old Home Depot stores." He said it will feature a better design and will include an onsite rental facility and a Penske Truck rental location. Council member Patrick Roff praised the development team and city staff for working hard to ensure a maximum amount of trees were saved on the acreage.
"It's a heavily forested piece of land," said Roff. "There are 15 pages of tree mitigation included in this package and by working together, they saved a lot of trees."
Mark Young, Herald urban affairs reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7041 or follow him on Twitter@urbanmark2014.
This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Culver's to open in east Bradenton; new Home Depot clears final regulatory hurdle ."