Planning Board green lights Dunkin’ Donuts on South Main
WOONSOCKET — A company that owns 36 Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in two states has gotten the green light from the Planning Board to build another on South Main Street.
Dan’s Management was granted permission to erect a roughly 1,800-square-foot restaurant on a parcel of about a half-acre opposite an existing Cumberland Farms store.
City Planner Rui Almeida said that board approved the company’s plans with only “minor tweaks” for design and landscaping. A representa- tive of Dan’s Management said the company doesn’t have any architectural renderings of what the store would look like, but the plans calls for façade materials that include cultured stone, cement siding and gray synthetic panel.
Planners called the design a “modern and contemporary aesthetic” that was “a very appropriate image for the times and the company branding” in the panel’s written approval documents.
The floor plans shows a building of roughly 36 feet by 49 feet with a seating capacity of about 18. The restaurant would include a horseshoe-shaped drive-through and a service window on the east side. Almeida said the restaurant will bring some additional motor vehicle traffic to an area that’s already heavily traveled, but planners didn’t think congestion would become an issue. “It’s going to intensify traffic…but no one thought it would create any traffic situation that isn’t manageable,” he said. “Traffic’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s good to see activity over there.”
The construction site for the new Dunkin’ Donuts is currently in use as the Meineke Car Care Center at 240 South Main St. and an adjacent house. Dan’s Management plans on razing both of them to make room for the restaurant.
Dan’s Management had approached the city about building a new Dunkin’ Donuts in the city in 2015 at the site of a former funeral parlor at Lincoln and Providence streets. The City Council, however, effectively killed the proposal when it denied the company’s petition for a zoning change. Councilman Richard Fagnant – who had not yet been elected to the panel at the time – had circulated a petition among neighbors who opposed a restaurant at the site before the council voted.
Dan’s Management does not need a zoning change for the proposed South Main Street site because the area is already zoned for commercial use.
Within the eight square miles of the city’s land area, there are five existing Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants, and Dan’s Management owns two of them – at 711 Front St. and 1338 Park Square. But Planning Board member Kenneth Finlay said representatives of the Dan’s Management told the panel that the Front Street location would be shuttered when the new store is built.
“That one will be closing,” said Finlay.
He said Dan’s Management indicated that the company was anxious to close on the purchase of the land it needs to build the new store and begin construction “as soon as possible.”
The company needs no other regulatory approvals from any city board to begin construction, Finlay said.
It was Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt who announced Dan’s Management’s plans for the South Main Street site several weeks ago, before the planning board considered the proposal. She said she was pleased to be able to help the company find a new location after the company’s plans for Providence Street hit an impasse.
“We have someone who wants to invest in the city, we have someone who has the means to invest in the city, and we have been working to help,” she said.
Headquartered in Providence, Dan’s Management owns 33 Dunkin’ Donuts stores all over Rhode Island and three in Connecticut – two in Preston and another in North Stonington. James Lynch is the president and chief executive officer of the company, according to its web site. He couldn’t be reached for comment.