A subsidiary of Panda Restaurant Group has submitted new plans with the city of Waukesha to build a strip mall at the former Weissgerber’s Gasthaus restaurant site.
The new plans are scaled back from the original 9,800-square-foot, multi-tenant retail and restaurant building at 2720 N. Grandview Blvd., and include one less restaurant.
CFT Developments LLC., which is registered to Rosemead, Calif.-based Panda Restaurant Group, owner of Panda Express Restaurant, has been trying since April to get approval to build three small restaurant spaces and three small retail spaces at the site.
New plans, submitted to the city this month, call for two restaurant spaces and three retail spaces, totaling 8,969 square feet and a 2,634-square-foot Panda Express stand-alone restaurant, which has always been included in the proposal.
The new plans also address the traffic concerns that sunk the proposal at the July plan commission meeting. The group has also added parking, bringing the total number of spaces to 124. The City of Waukesha’s Board of Zoning Appeals will review the appeal on Sept. 12.
City staff originally recommended against the proposal in April citing concerns with having two drive-thru restaurants on the site, traffic and issues with the architecture. At the time, the Plan Commission opted to put the project on hold.
The revised plans brought to the plan commission in July eliminated a drive-thru restaurant on the strip mall, opting instead for outdoor seating. The architecture was also improved and the plans attempted to incorporate a gateway feature at the corner of Grandview and Silvernail Road, but the plan commission still voted against it.
CFT Developments LLC purchased the former restaurant for $1.6 million in June, the same month the iconic Gasthaus restaurant closed after 33 years in operation.
