2-story Starbucks, drivethru proposed for Paper Mill Village

Here’s the first look a major change proposed for Paper Mill Village: The building containing an existing Starbucks location would give way to a two-story, standalone coffee shop with a drivethru lane.

That’s according to filings with the Cobb Zoning Office in an application scheduled to be heard by the Cobb Planning Commission Oct. 4.

The filings include a revised site plan with new access points and procedures for conducting a traffic study to gauge how the expanded coffee shop would affect traffic in the busy Johnson Ferry Road-Paper Mill Road area.

S & B Investments has applied to rezone the 0.73-acre tract on the northwest corner of that intersection from future commercial and R-80 to NRC (Neighborhood Retail Commercial).

(Although Paper Mill Village is a mixed-used commercial development, it has a unique zoning history that we noted earlier this year when the property’s developer sought NRC designation for other buildings there.)

According to the application (you can read it here and view more renderings), the building would be around 5,000 square feet and the Starbucks would be open from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. seven days a week.

A stipulation letter from Garvis Sams, the S & B Investments attorney, includes a lengthy list of retail uses that would not be allowed on the property (you can read that letter here).

S & B Investments previously requested, then dropped, a request to add a drivethru lane for its existing 1,600-square-foot building, which includes space for two other retail businesses. One of them, where a nail salon was located, is vacant, and the other is a dry cleaning service.

Initial zoning staff analysis concluded that there wasn’t sufficient space to provide drivethru service for Starbucks with the building intact.

In his letter, Sams wrote that “while Starbucks has been a presence at this intersection for decades, because of the change in demographics and circumstances engrained in the nuanced evolution of our culture generally and more specifically the like-kind demographic within this sub-area of east Cobb County, the drive-thru component is no longer an option but is, instead, a necessary component.”

There is a standalone one-story Starbucks just up Johnson Ferry at Woodlawn Square. There’s a two-story Starbucks similar to the one proposed for Paper Mill Village in Sandy Springs.

Renderings provided in the Paper Mill Village filings show expansive customer space inside the new building, and traffic configurations.

The initial site plan called for a two-way access point from an existing alley off Johnson Ferry Road.

That has been changed to provide separate entrance and exit access from that alley, and a two-way access point from the existing alley off Paper Mill Road. A total of 23 parking spaces are included, including handicapped spots, and the drivethru area would be sealed off.

Cobb Zoning Staff has not completed its analysis or made a recommendation.

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