Final plans for Whataburger approved off U.S. 31 in Spring Hill
Spring Hill city planners unanimously approved final site plans for a new Whataburger to be located just off Main Street.
The approval will now allow the popular burger chain to construct its first Spring Hill location, which will be at the former Burger King site adjacent to Publix and Suntrust Bank.
Throughout the approval process, planners have expressed concerns about how the new fast food drive-thru will affect traffic along U.S. Highway 31. This included the need to construct proper right-in-right-out turn lanes, as well as possibly retiming the stoplight at Campbell's Station Boulevard.
Related News: Site plans for Whataburger in Spring Hill to go before vote in August
Spring Hill: Whataburger drive-thru restaurant proposed for Main St.
According to a Spring Hill planning staff report, all requests previously made in regards to revisions to the plans, such as showing proper elevation and other architectural details, as well as addressing the traffic issues, have been met prior to Monday's planning commission meeting.
Most of the concerns expressed by planners include creating further traffic issues to a road that tends to experience daily gridlock times, and if traffic coming and going from a drive-thru would potentially make matters worse.
"Are we confident with the studies that we've done with traffic that we aren't going to create a problem on our main roads?" Commissioner David Schlessman asked.
A recent traffic impact study was presented by Gerald Bolden of Corradino Group, which showed that, "much like any development, it's going to add traffic."
"As we know, 31 is going through a future widening project that will help alleviate some of that traffic congestion, as well as the signal timing that would occur to accommodate that additional traffic," Bolden said. "The opening weeks, or during high traffic periods, there will be significant traffic congestion."
Per the approval, one of staff's recommendations was that the applicant, MS Consultants, would partially fund the proposed signal timing at Campbell's Station Boulevard.
The applicant is also not required to dedicate any right-of-way as part of the plans, which Senior Planner Peter Hughes said is due to the Tennessee Department of Transportation's ongoing widening project at U.S. 31.
However, the site's design was done in a way to accommodate right-of-way dedication if necessary.
"The site has been designed to accommodate the best we know of a project that is in various states of studies and design," Chairman Jonathan Duda said.
Founded in 1950 in Corpus Christi, Texas, Whataburger celebrated 72 years of business this week. It now operates approximately 880 locations in the U.S. and employs about 43,000 workers.
The Spring Hill location will be one of nine restaurants the burger chain hopes to open in Middle Tennessee by the end of 2022.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Herald: Final plans approved for Whataburger off U.S. 31 in Spring Hill
