Lady’s Island could get its first drive-thru coffee shop. Why one group is fighting it
A coffee shop with a drive-thru would be a first for Lady’s Island. But the development, planned on a busy stretch of Sea Island Parkway, also is raising concerns about traffic and whether its shop front meets the area’s required look.
Is the proposed coffee restaurant a Dunkin’ Donuts, as some have suggested? Developer Graham Trask says he isn’t at liberty to say at this stage.
Despite the concerns being raised, Trask argues the project at 131 Sea Island Parkway will be good for Lady’s Island residents, its neighborhoods and even traffic. As the island’s first coffee restaurant with a drive-thru, he says, it will help to satisfy a dearth of amenities that force residents to drive to Beaufort or onto Ribaut Road.
The Sea Island Corridor Coalition disagrees. The development watchdog group contends the 2,400-square-foot restaurant on about an acre just west of the Sams Point Road intersection will exacerbate traffic congestion.
“The essential problem is you have a drive-in restaurant on the busiest stretch of the Sea Island Parkway,” says Chuck Newton, the group’s chairman.
The restaurant, which vehicles will enter and exit from Sea Island Parkway, is located across from Island Square Shopping Center anchored by Grayco Hardware and Home and near the location where the westbound lanes narrow from two to one.
This stretch of the Sea Island Parkway sees 18,000 vehicle trips daily, based on South Carolina Department of Transportation figures, Newton said.
And the proposal comes as the county works on a comprehensive plan that calls for redeveloping Lady’s Island into a more pedestrian friendly way with less dependence on vehicles. “This will complicate that entire process,” Newton said.
Reconfiguring Sea Island Parkway using part of $30 million in road taxes voters OK’d in 2018 also is in the works.
Trask contends the development will, in fact, reduce traffic overall.
The coffee shop will allow Lady’s Island residents to buy coffee on the island, reducing traffic on major roads leading to the bridges and also through downtown Beaufort and on Ribaut Road.
Traffic is an issue on Sea Island Parkway because it is a major thoroughfare, Trask said. He hopes future plans for the road include slowing traffic and more traffic lights.
“But a coffee shop doesn’t create more traffic,” he said.
Trask’s project needs a special-use permit and a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals because a drive-thru coffee restaurant is not a permitted use in the T4 Neighborhood District-zoned area and his proposed shop front differs from the county’s standard.
The board delayed decisions on those requests last month and will take up the matter again Nov. 17.
County planners are raising concerns with the configuration of the drive-thru that would wrap around the front of the property, between the restaurant and the sidewalk.
“We will ask the Zoning Board of Appeals to look at it carefully,” said Rob Merchant, the county’s Planning and Zoning Department director. “Our position is that we allow drive-thrus in that district but, in order to meet the intent and the requirements of the district, it needs to be configured in a certain way.”
