New Wendy's is stalled

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By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

In January, when the old Wendy’s restaurant on West Sixth Avenue was torn down, its owners didn’t know the soil underneath was contaminated from a gas station that used to sit on the spot. Now, the site must be cleaned up before a new restaurant can be built.

Results of a routine soil test have stalled construction of a new Wendy’s Old-Fashioned Hamburgers restaurant at 701 W. Sixth Ave.

Bad weather already had slowed progress on the site, where the old restaurant was demolished Jan. 8.

“The main issue is, we had to do soil testing there, and there are pollutants in that ground and it is contaminated,” said Tod Eland, marketing spokesman for Sunset Equities of McPherson. Sunset owns both Wendy’s locations in Emporia.

The West Sixth operation formerly was the site of Meloy’s Fina Service Station.

The contaminants in the soil will need to be cleared away before anything can be built on the property. The company is applying for assistance through the Super Fund authorized by Congress for such circumstances.

“It’s a lengthy process, unfortunately,” Eland said. “There’s a lot of criteria to have it cleaned up correctly, but we’re right now in the process of just applying for those funds and waiting for them to come out and say, ‘This is the correct way to do it.’ And, of course, it has to be done by their guidelines.

“When that is done, then we can move forward.”

In the interim, some equipment that already had been ordered for the new restaurant has arrived.

“We’ve got specific Wendy’s materials that we’re having to store now,” Eland said. “They actually were on shipment.”

The soil contamination, however, gave Sunset Equities owner Gary Reiman and staff an opportunity to look at some of the latest building designs available for Wendy’s. Plans already were being considered to install digital menus and some interactive customer features. Sunset now is considering three designs and “the bathrooms are just incredible,” he said.

“There’s one design, it’s actually three stories,” Eland said. “So I guess the upside to having us delayed is that we’re getting the latest technology and the latest design, and Wendy’s is really evolving in that area fast. ... So I guess if there’s a silver lining to that dark cloud that’s hanging over that property, that’s the silver lining.”

After the demolition in January, construction was expected to be completed this spring.

Sunset Equities initially intended to remodel the building, but decided to raze and replace it with a larger restaurant. The soil contamination likely would not have been discovered during remodeling.

“It’s a little bump in that road that’s come up,” Eland said. “But gosh, you get an opportunity to make something right.”