McDonald’s got the message that Ellis Avenue residents and beyond didn’t want them to build on the the Schaefer Shell site, at Manchester and Big Bend, and a few months ago decided to back out of Maplewood.
Rezoning two residential properties on Ellis Avenue was needed, McDonald’s said, and according to Councilman Barry Greenberg and City Manager Marty Corcoran, that wasn’t going to be easy.
“The city’s decision has been normally not to rezone residential properties,” Corcoran told the St. Louis Business Journal. “It became fairly obvious to them (McDonald’s) that the city was not going to rezone those properties.”
Greenberg told 40 South News by email, “Rezoning residential property for commercial purposes would have been a major uphill battle.”
Greenberg also said he thought it was partially due to the response McDonald’s received from the residents who attended a meeting at the library, in December. “It was obvious that they didn’t do their homework regarding the negative effect on and reaction of the neighborhood,” he said.
McDonald’s was on the Planning and Zoning agenda for January, February — rescheduled to March, then April, but pulled out of each one.
At the April meeting Assistant City Manager Anthony Traxler said McDonald’s had been in touch with him and to meet in the next couple of weeks to resubmit a plan. They never made it to planning and zoning.
Eric Hoffman, an architect who lives on Ellis Avenue, said he and others on the block let the city know how they felt, but said on Saturday that he couldn’t say why exactly McDonald’s pulled out.
See also: McDonald’s again absent from planning and zoning, McDonald’s: apparent reversal, won’t be at March plan and zoning, McDonald’s to present at April planning and zoning: council member
I have been a customer there for twenty years and Im very happy with all our business transactions, I also sell them there pump paper and know they don’t run out..someone is making things up for other reasons, maybe they just don’t have a life.