Chick-fil-A coming to Merrimon

Chick-fil-A will open on Merrimon Avenue in the forthcoming Harris Teeter development.

The fast-food restaurant is one of three smaller buildings on the 8.45-acre site that accompany the grocery store. The property sits at the corner of Merrimon and Chestnut, near Greenlife and the site of the future Trader Joe’s.

Chick-fil-A confirmed through an email to Xpress that the new location is “projected to open,” although public relations representative Bernard Hendrix says it’s too early to say exactly when.

The property’s developer, Steve Vermillion of Charlotte-based Merrifield Patrick Vermillion, says the smaller buildings will be complete in early 2014.

Rumors have been circulating since winter that Chick-fil-A would open on the property. The city issued a permit for the restaurant last week.

“There wasn’t a hard contract until recently,” Vermillion says. “Their inspection period went for quite awhile.”

The Harris Teeter store is scheduled to open on Wednesday, Sept. 4, according to a company representative.

The fate of the property has been in limbo since Deal Buick left in the mid-2000s. Because of the site’s zoning, the Harris Teeter development didn’t require City Council approval. Still, Council had a say in the plans for the smaller buildings, reviewing them in January and February and hearing months of public comment.

Residents raised concerns about the volume of cars associated with drive-thrus, along with the smell of fryers and car emissions. Vermillion argued that a drive-thru was “critical for the success of the development,” according to minutes from the Jan. 22 City Council meeting.

“It’s just a shame with what could have been,” says Helen Powell-Busch, who lives around the corner from the development on Mount Clare Avenue. “There’s a place for that in Asheville, but not right there.”

For more information about the Harris Teeter development and the zoning of the property, click here, here and here.

Check mountainx.com for updates on this story throughout the week.

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11 thoughts on “Chick-fil-A coming to Merrimon

  1. Marty

    Too bad. Boycott. Eat More Kale! Chick-fil-A suing a small town artist in VT for printing T-Shirts saying “Eat More Kale”. Chick-fil-A says it is too much like their slogan. Kale vs Chicken? Really.

  2. john Lomax

    Boo! Go away Chic Fil A! We don’t want you or your maral majority Biggotry here. Go open up at Dolly World where you belong.

  3. Dionysis

    Oh goodie; Chick Fil A, known for funding bigotry and are probably the most notorious for the abuse they perpetrate on an animal called ‘the most abused on the planet’ (they cram chickens into places so tight they cannot move, in their own excrement, only to have their throats cut at age two, although they can live to 20), gets FREE advertising!

    But to be fair, it will generate a handful of low-waqe, non-benefitted jobs as well as more traffic and trash on the streets.

    • indy499

      If you don’t want to help them, pipe down. The year of the big anti-gay boycott produced their most profitable year, spurred by 12% growth.

    • MIke

      What an uninformed liberal robot you are. You find a “liberal cause” and cheer for it without knowing the facts.

      Chick-fil-A *does* provide benefits: medical, dental, and vision. That’s what all the protesting was about; they wouldn’t provide benefits to partners of employees in same-sex couples. They reversed their decision some weeks later and now cover same-sex partners.

  4. Dionysis

    “If you don’t want to help them, pipe down. The year of the big anti-gay boycott produced their most profitable year, spurred by 12% growth.”

    I’m not trying to either help them or hurt them, and the likelihood of a posted comment on this site having any effect at all on anyone or any business is slim to none. While marches, protests and attempts at boycotts have and will continue to have the opposite effect, as you note.

    Thanks for the advice, but I decline to accept it.

    • indy499

      If you right about the limited impact, why do you post here? Just for practice?

  5. Dionysis

    “If you right about the limited impact, why do you post here? Just for practice?”

    In the expectation that it will provoke some kind of reaction from another anomymous poster, as it has done, and because I can. Why do you read them?

  6. Bacchae

    What a shame. That property would have been better suited for a company that promotes equality for all and doesn’t send copious amounts of contributions to lobbyist that are fighting to suppress gay people. I won’t be eating there…… I’d rather eat Kale. :P

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