Gas station with cafe proposed

Some opportunities still remain in City Market project

A new addition is proposed in the City Market development in Mentor.

The city Planning Commission on Sept. 12 will hold a public hearing and consider a preliminary plan for a GetGo gas station with a café and outdoor seating at 6800 Center St.

The project, proposed by Giant Eagle Inc., involves adding a 5,380-square-foot building on about 1.5 acres fronting Center Street, east of Giant Eagle.

Service stations, and outdoor dining and drinking areas, are conditionally permitted in the B-2, General Business District.

The gas station will have eight dispensing islands with 16 total fueling stations on the south side of the site. The plan also includes two air pump stations north of the entrance-only drive off of Center Street.

The outside patio on the east side of the building will have two tables with four chairs and one umbrella per table. The plan shows a picnic table at the southwest corner of the parking lot within the landscape island. Much of the City Market site had been zoned industrial since

at least 1953, with the M-2, Heavy Manufacturing zoning category being assigned in 1963.

A majority of the site was part of the Fluid Controls campus. Another significant portion had been occupied by Middleton Roofing.

In 2015, the Commission approved a request to rezone about 12 acres to B-2, General Business. The request was backed by voters the same year.

In 2017, the Commission supported the preliminary site plan for the City Market development and vacation of Kelly Drive.

Giant Eagle opened as the development’s anchor tenant in May.

The GetGo station puts the development a step closer to completion, noted Mentor Economic Development Director Kevin Malecek “The developers of Mentor City Center project are always marketing to other potential national, regional and local tenants, as are we in the Economic Development Department,” he said. The number of tenant spaces left depends on how the remaining property is developed.

Other public hearings on the Sept. 12 agenda are:

•A conditional-use permit request to allow a child day care center at 6135 Heisley Road, in the MIP Industrial Park District, by Creative Explorers Child Care Center and Michael Androus Properties LLC.

•A conditional-use permit request to allow Great Lakes Mall to hold a temporary event with amplified music in the B-2 General Business District.

The Commission meets at 7 p.m. on the third floor of Mentor Municipal Center, 8500 Civic Center Blvd.