Developer proposes new Arby’s for Punxsutawney

PUNXSUTAWNEY — Up until now, if you wanted to buy a classic Arby’s roast beef sandwich with horsey sauce and potato cakes or spiral fries for dinner, you would have to drive to DuBois, Brookville or Indiana.

But a Pittsburgh developer asked the Punxsutawney Borough Planning and Zoning Commission Wednesday for a zoning change that would allow his group to build an Arby’s restaurant in the 500 block of West Mahoning Street.

The fast-food giant is eyeing 2,675-square feet from Dr. Delroy Moore’s property that SPC Realty would purchase.

Milo Ritton, president of SPC Realty, said he has 20 restaurants, including Arby’s and KFC throughout Pennsylvania. He said he’d like to have the Punxsutawney restaurant open by the first weekend of September.

Tyler Piotrouski, of Geotech Engineering Group, which is overseeing the project, said the property altogether is less than an acre.

Eric Story, planning and zoning chairman, asked if they were going to have a turning lane heading west on West Mahoning similar to the Punxy Plaza and Lily’s Restaurant.

Piotrouski said the initial plan is to extend the unnamed alley which is by Dr. Delroy Moore’s office and will be the only in and out to West Mahoning Street, and they’ll have 16 parking spaces.

Story said he’s concerned about the flow of traffic traveling west if there’s no turning lane. “We already have a left hand turning lane for traffic to turn into the plaza,” he said, adding that tractor-trailer trucks travel further down to the trestle and cross over two double yellow lines to turn into the plaza.

Ritton said he owns the two parcels and Dr. Moore has agreed to sell him his property.

“It’s funny because a lot of people have tried to buy these two parcels from me that I’ve owned for the last 17 years and I never did anything with them until now,” Ritton said, adding that he wants to get together and develop this property.

Ritton said assuming they approve the zoning change dictates how soon they can begin construction.

“We still have the complete land development plan, my history says it takes two maybe meetings, which would make it 60 days and assuming you have a third party reviewer, I’m not sure who it is for Punxsutawney,” Ritton said, adding that it would take 90 days to get the planning completed and 90 days to construct.

“To be specific about this, when we discuss this in lieu of trying to ask for a highway opening from PennDOT we decided it would be best to use the two alleys that are already there and make those wider,” he said. “If we could make an application to obtain a Highway Occupancy Permit and we would do that on behalf of the borough.”

Ritton said the borough owns those alleys. He said there’s room to make the Pantall Alley to be the main entrance.

“We’ll have to develop a stormwater retention plan at the site, which it wouldn’t receive approval without it,” Ritton said.

He said the prototype building has 46 seats, and this restaurant will employ a shift of four people at one time and have 25 employees.

“We’ll let the town tell us the hours we’ll be open,” he said. “We’re not going to serve breakfast so they’ll open at 11 a.m. and close at 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and stay open until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.”

Larry Chenoga, commission member, made a motion to approve the request onto council, Bob Barone seconded and all three commission members, including Story, gave approval.

So now the Arby’s request will make its way to Punxsutawney Borough Council for its approval.

Ritton said following the meeting that he had purchased the property to construct an Advance Auto Parts and instead he bought the property on the other side of West Mahoning and built the auto parts store over there.

“I sold it in 2005, and I continued to own this property since 2003,” Ritton said. “We’re a large convenience store operator with fast-food restaurants.”