OBSERVER Photos by Braden Carmen Construction of a Starbucks coffee shop in the city of Dunkirk, already approved by the city council, will not begin until the fall. Starbucks will occupy the current AT&T building in the Tops Plaza on Vineyard Drive.
Starbucks coffee lovers will have to wait a little longer before a new location in the city of Dunkirk opens.
Construction of a drive-thru Starbucks coffee shop on Vineyard Drive in the Tops Plaza in Dunkirk will not begin until the fall. A tentative construction date is set for just after Labor Day, Ryan Mourer, code enforcement manager for the city of Dunkirk, told the OBSERVER.
Starbucks will take over AT&T's current location in the square, which sits at the end of a strip of businesses near the square's Vineyard Drive entrance. Construction on Starbucks won't begin until AT&T moves from its current location to a new location on the other side of the same strip of businesses in the plaza, just a few feet from the current location.
AT&T will replace GameStop, a national chain of video game and electronics stores. This move and reconfiguration of the site is expected to begin in April.
The Starbucks project was approved by the City Council in August, with conditions suggested by the planning board after offering conditional approval in June. Among the conditions set by the City Council in its approval of the Starbucks site plan were the installation of speed limit signs, turn signs and other appropriate signs, lane markers to direct traffic and a speed bump to deter drivers from driving vehicles at high speeds in the area.
Regarding another board-approved project in the city, a new Popeyes restaurant has seen little progress since its approval in May. The fast-food drive-thru restaurant will be co-located with the Dunkirk Multiplex and the recently opened Planet Fitness on Bennett Road, within sight of the Dunkirk/Fredonia Thruway.
Mourer said that while construction is not imminent, more information about the Popeyes project will be available in the coming weeks.