Restaurant proposed on Talmadge

3/13/2003

The Toledo plan commission is expected to discuss a site plan today for a proposed IHOP restaurant on Talmadge Road, just north of Sylvania Avenue.

The plan proposes a nearly 5,000-square-foot building on the west side of Talmadge where Orchard Drugs and The Charcoal House restaurant once stood. A preliminary drawing of the plan for the International House of Pancakes was approved in July.

The site also includes an office building at the corner of Wenwood Avenue, which is to be demolished, according to the plan commission staff.

The site is targeted by the Toledo 20/20 land-use plan to be single-family residential, but the staff noted in their recommendation that the site is zoned for commercial use and has a long history of commercial use.

The staff has recommended approval of the plan with certain conditions, which include:

w Only one drive onto Talmadge and that it must be designed to function only for right turns in and out of the parking lot.

w There will be a second shared drive at Wenwood.

Major roads in the vicinity are notoriously congested, but that condition may improve with about $1 million committed by the operators of Westfield Shoppingtown Franklin Park.

The Australian mall chain made the commitment as part of its $70 million plan to upgrade and expand the mall.

The plan commission is considering other commercial proposals today. Among them:

w Susan Burkett, president of the Historic Vistula Foundation, and her partner, Stuart Cline, are asking for a zoning change for 802 North Huron St. from multi-family residential to commercial mixed use. They plan to lease the building as a salon and day spa.

The three-story building at Walnut Street and Huron, known in the neighborhood as "The Big House," was constructed in the 1870s by Theodore Casey, who was a partner in a downtown grain company.

Later, it was turned into St. John's College. The college closed during the Great Depression. The building is owned by the Catholic Diocese of Toledo's Mareda, Inc., a low-income housing group. The 8,000-square-foot building was briefly used as a halfway house.

The North Toledo couple have an interest, and some success, in reclaiming historic structures. They have won accolades for the renovation of their home, the Raymond-Ketcham House, at 329 Chestnut St.

w The Matthew Vincente Salon on West Dussel Drive in Maumee is proposing to relocate to a former medical office building on Garden Road near Manley and Perrysburg-Holland roads in South Toledo.