ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 28, 1996 TAG: 9602280058
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
THE BUILDING'S EXTERIOR is fairly understated, the drive-through is a tunnel designed to cut down on noise, and trees have been planted to mask it from residential areas.
The Golden Arches will be gleaming brightly when the new McDonald's opens this morning at Oak Grove Plaza.
But the road to this McDonaldland hasn't been all Happy Meals and fries for owner Mike Grimm.
Some Oak Grove-area residents, fearing the high-traffic area would become even more congested, objected last October when Grimm requested a special-use permit from Roanoke County for a drive-through window. Others predicted that the restaurant would attract loiterers and litterers. And they fear that allowing McDonald's to move in would open the door for other eateries on a stretch of Virginia 419 that previously had been fast-food free.
But Grimm, who owns 18 McDonald's restaurants in Southwest Virginia, said Tuesday that he's confident his new store, near 419 and Grandin Road Extension, will be a popular neighborhood destination.
"I think the majority of the people wanted us here," he said.
The building's exterior is fairly understated for a fast-food restaurant. The hotly contested drive-through is actually a tunnel, designed to cut down on noise. It will be speakerless, Grimm said; customers will relay their orders directly to an employee through a window.
Inside, the store obviously was designed with kids in mind. Glass cases displaying Barbie dolls and Matchbox cars line the walls. The chairs are bright purple, yellow and blue. A playland includes climbing nets, ball pit and crawling tubes that snake through the play area and out above the seating section.
"This is just a natural location to make it a kids' store," Grimm said. Oak Grove Elementary School is right down the street, he said, and there's a karate school in the same shopping strip.
"This is a way to give something back to the community," Grimm said.
Although Grimm said he had planned to open a kid-centered McDonald's long before any objections were raised, he said the restaurant's family focus should reassure those residents who feared the place would become a teen-age hangout.
"I tried to explain to them that teen-agers will not hang around where parents are," Grimm said.
He insists he has been sensitive to the concerns of the residents.
"Basically, all we did was try to make them happy," he said. He added speed bumps in the drive-through lane and agreed to plant trees behind the restaurant, to mask it from the residential area.
Tuesday afternoon, a day before the grand opening, workers were putting focusing lenses on the parking lot lights because residents had complained that the beams lit too large an area. "Just about everything they've asked for, we've accomplished."
But Grimm can't do anything to calm residents' fears that the arrival of the McDonald's will open the area to other fast-food restaurants.
"I don't see how they can keep out the others," said Robert Shelton, who lives a block from Oak Grove Plaza. "They've opened the floodgate."
And even though Grimm said he doesn't expect the restaurant to create a traffic problem, several residents who spoke out against the project in October continue to fear the worst.
Supervisor Fuzzy Minnix said the potential for traffic tie-ups led him to vote with Eddy in October.
"That is a real bad area as far as traffic is concerned," Minnix said. "But until [Grimm] gets in and we see what happens, we just don't know."
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. 1. Oak Grove Plaza's new McDonald'sby CNBis not your typical-looking Golden Arches. The franchise's owner
strayed from the standard design to appease nearby residents. 2.
Mike Grimm has geared his new McDonald's toward kids. A giant
plastic tunnel extends into the dining room. color.