Wendys Has Sights Set on Amherstburg Once Again
By Rob Hindi
A proposed Wendy's restaurant in Amherstburg is back on the table.
On Tuesday, council held a special meeting and approved some zoning concerns that needed to be addressed for the fast food restaurant with a drive thru.
The restaurant will be located on Sandwich Street near Fort Street next to the Sobeys grocery store.
The proposed Wendy's restaurant would be next door to the Sobeys in Amherstburg, August 13, 2018 (Photo by AM800's Rob Hindi)
As heard on AM800 News last August, council deferred amending a development agreement for the project.
At that time, the developer Joe Mikhail threatened to take the town and Sobeys to court for deferring the matter.
He said a shovel needed to be in the ground by September or the project would be dead.
However, Mayor Aldo DiCarlo says all parties returned to the table to find a solution.
"There is about a $3-million development there and approximately 50 jobs that cannot be overstated," says DiCarlo. "Small towns all struggle for big development and so nothing really can be overlooked and this will add a lot of value to the town."
He's pleased all parties returned to the table.
"We did owe something to the developer there who spent a considerable amount of time, his own time, his own money to redo the whole development, redo the look of the building and still try and pull it off in the time line he was hoping to do," says DiCarlo.
He feels the new proposal is better than the one that was first presented last year.
"We already did have a commercial site but you also had some residential up there," says DiCarlo. "The property was always zoned to be developed in the way it is so that really wasn't the issue. The issue was just how it was going to affect everything else around it."
DiCarlo says the proposal returns to town council on April 8th for site plan approval.
He expects construction to start immediately, if approved but did not have exact time lines.
The $3-million development is expected to create 50 jobs.