WILMINGTON — The development known as Renaissance Market on Military Cutoff Road has gotten the approval of the City of Wilmington’s Planning Commission to modify plans to allow for additional traffic.
Originally the development was approved for a grocery store along with restaurants, but the developer later changed plans and asked to allow a coffee shop with drive-thru; the change would increase the number of trips in and out of the center.
“The site was planned for a high turnover restaurant and did not envision a drive-thru at that time. The proposed use a combination now of a coffee shop with a drive-thru service and supplementary retail space,” Cindy Wolf, owner of Design Solutions on behalf of the property owner said.
Related: Developer requesting a change to initial permit to allow for more traffic at Renaissance Market
The changes will add additional traffic to the center, but it will remain under the approved traffic impact analysis (TIA) conducted for the development in 2017. The TIA takes theoretical daily trips into account for each proposed use and then creates a daily trip count for each individual entity, as well as the center as a whole.
According to the TIA, the maximum daily trips would be 6,786. The previously approved ordinance would have generated 5,710 daily trips in and out of the center, the newly proposed increase would see that number reach 6,124 daily trips.
“The big topic of conversation was obviously traffic and the traffic impact analysis was completed after extensive coordination with the Department of Transportation … As far as the average weekday trips we are slightly more because of the morning trips — but the morning trips are not the more important of this type of center, it is the afternoon and Saturday trips that are more the driving force of this,” Wolf said.
The Planning Commission approved the request to modify the plans unanimously.
