City Council Sees The Light
by June 30, 1997 12:00 am 61 views
The plan for construction of a 2,228-SF McDonald’s restaurant in Fayetteville was almost aborted Tuesday because of a debate over the color of roof beams.
McDonald’s wanted white. The Fayetteville Planning Commission preferred a teal green.
The city, McDonald’s and developer Don Cozart had haggled over various aspects of the design for months. The city and Cozart wanted something more appealing than the average strip mall, so Cozart commission architect Laleh Amirmoez of Fayetteville to design the $12 million Glennwood Shopping Center currently under construction near the intersection of Arkansas Highways 45 and 265.
McDonald’s, however, wanted to build its prototype building on an outparcel at the site, saying a different design would be more expensive to construct and would cost the company name recognition if it didn’t match the plethora of McDonald’s restaurants in the world.
In mid-June, the issue was roof towers. Then, after McDonald’s learned the towers didn’t apply to the their building, only to the rest of the shopping center, the issue became roof beams.
In the end, the city agreed that McDonald’s could build its prototype building at the site, and McDonald’s agreed to use building material and paint that matched the rest of the shopping center.
The final issue was the beams, which cover spotlights on the roofs of most McDonald’s restaurants. The company traditionally uses white beams on a charcoal roof, but agreed to paint both roof and beams a teal green to match the shopping center in Fayetteville.
“That’s a registered trademark of McDonald’s – the double-pitched roof and white roof beams,” says Rich Ezell, manager of the shopping center.
After a meeting in mid-June with a subcommittee of the planning commission, Cozart threatened to turn his shopping center into an average strip mall just to keep from losing McDonald’s as a tenant.
But Cozart didn’t have to do that. After considerable discussion at Tuesday’s meeting, six of the seven commissioners voted to approve the construction.
If the plan hadn’t been approved, Cozart said he would have halted further construction at the site until a new plan for McDonald’s could be drafted and approved by the planning commission.