After 18 years in downtown Columbia, Addison’s Grill will open a second location. City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve plans for a new restaurant at the corner of Vawter School Road and Frontage Drive in southern Columbia.
The new location was approved after the Planning and Zoning Commission initially denied plans in January due to traffic concerns. The property backs up to the Copperstone subdivision on Frontage Drive.
Addison’s owners Jeremy Brown, Adam Dushoff and Matt Jenne re-submitted plans in March, with adjustments made to ease traffic flow on local neighborhoods. One of the key changes to the plans was a “right-in, right-out” policy, preventing customers from making a right turn into the Copperstone subdivision.
“We’re not arguing that their concerns were not valid,” said Dushoff. “We’re merely holding that we will do everything we can to limit and mitigate there being traffic, you know, through their neighborhood from our business.”
Dushoff said the development of southern Columbia led him and his co-owners to realize the potential of a second location.
“With Columbia being a small town, you would think that one restaurant of its own name should be enough for everyone,” Dushoff said. “But habits have changed and we find some of our customers don’t ever come downtown, just as some of our customers at Addison’s never go south of town. We recognized that the customer base would not be pirating off [each other].”
Columbia City Councilwoman Laura Nauser says the company’s plan is a testament to growth in the area.
“That’s a prime corner, there’s a lot of traffic that goes through there,” Nauser said. “I don’t think there’s a tract on Scott Blvd. that’s undeveloped, so there’s thousands of homes back in there now. So we’re getting the population density in this part of our community that would support those types of businesses.”
Dushoff said construction could begin by the end of 2017.