Almost three years after buying a former restaurant property next door to his business, the owner of the Dunkin’ Donuts store at 9200 Ogden Ave. in Brookfield is moving forward with a plan to overhaul the northwest corner of Maple and Ogden.
In June, Maneklal Patel submitted construction drawings for a new 2,300-square-foot Dunkin’ Donuts with a drive-thru and parking for 24 vehicles. The new store would be placed immediately west of the existing structure, slated to be renovated into a new commercial space with an apartment above.
According to Keith Sbiral, director of Brookfield Building and Planning Department, the project does not appear to need any zoning variations.
“They’d really like to start [construction] in August,” Sbiral said.
Attempts to reach Patel were unsuccessful.
Plans on file with the village show that the drive-thru will be a prominent feature in the new development. The drive-thru lane will run around the rear of the building, although a fence will separate the lane from the alley, said Sbiral, keeping traffic from the business contained to Ogden and Maple avenues.
“It’s great, absolutely,” said Sbiral of the project. “This is hopefully the first of several developments. The start of this development is a watershed development for Brookfield. This kind of opens the door for future developments. It shows, with time, the TIF will be successful.”
The new Dunkin’ Donuts building will measure 53-by-42 feet and will have seating for 26 people, according to the plans.
The shell of the existing building, meanwhile, would remain. The interior would be gutted to create new ground-floor retail and one apartment unit would be built above a portion of the building. On the plans, the exterior face of the renovated commercial building would be a combination of brick, synthetic stucco and some sort of clapboard siding.
Patel bought the corner property in 1997. In 2008, he acquired the property immediately west of the store, which was formerly home to Little Europe Restaurant. He demolished that building and the site has been vacant since that time.
While the two parcels are included in the Ogden Avenue TIF District, Patel is not seeking any TIF assistance for this project, according to Sbiral.
“It think it speaks to the fact that not every project will need TIF assistance,” said Sbiral. “If a city TIFs a district and every project needs TIF assistance, I think that’s the lazy approach.”
As it stands, there is $479,000 in the TIF fund, which was created when the village created the Ogden Avenue TIF in 2009.
The improvements at the corner at Ogden and Maple will help that fund increase, as they will increase the assessments on those properties.
