By Valdis I. Lacis
Reading Eagle
Area residents and visitors soon will be able to sample the menu of a new Red Robin Gourmet Burgers restaurant near Cabela’s.
Township supervisors on Saturday gave the green light to plans for a 5,800-square-foot building that will seat about 210 people and have 122 parking spaces.
“The community will have a family-oriented fun place to go to,” said Jim W. Ryan, chief executive officer of the Lehigh Valley Restaurant Group in Allentown.
He said that the locally owned and operated franchise group will open its 18th restaurant in the region in Lancaster County this week.
Costas J. Hrousis, principal at the commercial real estate firm Veraxia in Bethlehem, said groundbreaking for the Tilden project likely will be in May and completion by October, in time for the hunting season that brings large numbers of customers to Cabela’s.
The restaurant will be at the northeast corner of the intersection of Cabela Drive and Mountain Road, he said.
With Cabela’s and the new Tilden Ridge shopping center, the Red Robin will be at the center of what is becoming a regional shopping destination, Hrousis said.
The board’s unanimous approval was made subject to the franchise group constructing a parking lot with a pervious, or porous, surface that allows rain to soak into the soil instead of running off-site as stormwater.
Todd N. Stager, capital region manager of Penn Terra Engineering Inc., Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, said pervious surfaces make sense environmentally and are becoming more popular.
The board’s other condition is that a 4-foot wide sidewalk be built around the perimeter of the restaurant for public access and safety.
Thomas Hojnowski, a member of the township planning commission, said he is eager to see the new restaurant because the planners had asked that it use more stones for a more rustic and natural tone to meld with the area’s natural look.
Article Source: Reading Eagle