Bank neighbor to Campbell St. Inn a ‘drive-thru’ sticking point: FMPC
The future for a potential bank beside historic Campbell Station Inn remains up in the air as realtors’ hopes of having a drive-through at the bank are diminished.
Davis Overton with White Realty, Knoxville attorney Taylor Forrester and Chad Pendlay, real estate manager with Fifth Third Bank, sought a text amendment to the Town’s ordinance to provide for a drive-through service lane and window to a bank or real estate business in the Mixed-Use Town Center (downtown).
While there was no action, Farragut Municipal Planning Commissioners said they would not support such a text amendment at a recent meeting.
“I would not support a variance to the MUTC for these drive-thrus,” Commissioner Noah Myers said, receiving agreements from fellow Commissioners. “There’s a reason why we didn’t want those drive-thrus in the MUTC.”
“I cannot support the text amendment for a number of reasons,” Commissioner Ron Pinchok said, adding the biggest reasons were consistency and setting a precedent.
“If we play around with this, we could open up a can of worms down the road I don’t want to get into,” he added.
“This property has been part of the Town Center since 2001, so this is not new news,” Vice Mayor Scott Meyer said. “This shouldn’t be shocking to anyone that this property has the constraints it’s had for quite a while.”
Going down the table, none of the Commissioners supported the text amendment as it was proposed. However, Myers suggested the developers reconsider their drive-thru and add an ATM like Chase bank’s.
Mayor Ron Williams said developers presented two plans at a Staff-Developer meeting, one of which more closely resembled Chase’s.
On one plan, “What you are seeing are two drive-thru lanes that are behind the building,” Pendlay said. “From Kingston Pike, you would be shielding the drive-thru.
“The second (plan) has a detached drive-thru similar to what Chase did, which is a little further back.,” he added.
Community Development director Mark Shipley said if the plans for the drive-through were changed, the bank plan could be approved for that site.
“Currently, a drive-through lane is only permitted in the MUTC for establishments serving food or beverage on lots of record that are a minimum of 2 acres and subject to a number of additional criteria to basically limit the scale and visibility of the drive-through,” Shipley said.
“The location where the bank is interested in is (along Kingston Pike) to the immediate west of the Campbell Station Inn,” he added. “There are three banks in close vicinity with drive-through service lanes and windows.”
Shipley cited three reasons for his not supporting the drive-through.
• It is incompatible with the Comprehensive land Use Plan.
“An auto-oriented layout for a bank type use is not consistent with a built environment that prioritizes walkability and pedestrian activity.”
• Is incompatible with Town’s strategic plan to “Identify potential retailers to increase local sales tax revenue with remaining commercially zoned properties left to develop.”
• It is inconsistent with previous actions regarding Chase bank. “When the Chase bank, which is within the MUTC, approached the Town initially with a layout that included drive-through service lanes and windows, the staff noted that it was not permitted in the MUTC.
“Chase Bank revised its layout to not include drive-through service lanes,” Shipley added. “This revised layout, which only has an ATM that is separate from the building, was deemed by the Town attorney (Tom Hale) as consistent with the existing language in the Zoning Ordinance and would be permitted.”
“We’ve tried to do what we could for the community,” Overton said.
