Chick-fil-A makes another try at opening a Manchester restaurant
Chick-fil-A is proposing its 12th restaurant in Connecticut and the first one in Manchester after trying to open a location in town for years.
The 5,165-square-foot restaurant, with sit-down and drive-through service, would be built at 1428 Pleasant Valley Road on the site of a building that now houses a Boston Market restaurant and a former Starbucks coffee shop.
Town staff are reviewing the proposal, which is expected to be on the planning and zoning commission’s Oct. 19 meeting agenda.
Chick-fil-A representatives had scouted two other sites in Manchester in the past four years, but those plans went nowhere. One site was the parcel now occupied by Connecticare at 1487 Pleasant Valley Road, and the other was the busy corner at Deming and Avery streets.
The latest proposal hit a roadblock in July, when Chick-fil-A representatives went before the zoning board of appeals seeking a variance on placement of a trash enclosure at the new Pleasant Valley Road site. The board denied the variance, finding that more suitable locations for the trash enclosure were available without a variance.
At the public hearing on the proposal, Sarah Brown of Ambassador Drive spoke against granting the variance, citing Chick-fil-A’s history of opposition to the LGBTQ community, according to minutes of the July 22 hearing.
The Atlanta-based restaurant chain has come under fire for donations to groups opposing same-sex marriage. In 2012, President and CEO Dan Cathy said the company “was supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit.” Protests have popped up at restaurants around the nation, including the West Hartford Chick-fil-A in 2017.
In a written comment submitted at the Manchester ZBA hearing, Elizabeth Craun of Garden Street also opposed the variance because of increased traffic the popular restaurant would generate in an already busy area around the Plaza at Buckland Hills.
“I’ve witnessed traffic snarls and near accidents near their locations in West Hartford and Danbury,” Craun wrote. “This plaza is already a disaster at peak times due to limited entry and egress points and generally ill-conceived traffic movement patterns.”
A traffic report on the proposed site has not been submitted.
The proposed restaurant would have 104 indoor seats and 18 outdoor, seasonal seats. The proposed building would be located in the same location as the existing building. The drive-through operations would wrap around three sides of the restaurant, with 26 parking spaces on the western side.
Chick-fil-A has restaurants in Southington, Glastonbury, Newington, West Hartford and seven other communities in the state. The company has more than 2,400 restaurants across the nation, according to its website. Closed on Sundays, the restaurant chain’s “corporate purpose,” according to the website, is "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A.”
Jesse Leavenworth can be reached at jleavenworth@courant.com
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