Planning permission has been sought for three new fast-food restaurants on the corner of Albert Panton Street and Fort Street in central George Town, the site of the former Foster’s-owned Fort Street Market which was closed in 2008.
The current property is a two-storey, 9,506-square-foot commercial building, and the proposal is for a 581-square-foot commercial, single-storey building addition which would accommodate three new take-out restaurants.
The application has been made by Stewart Connelly of Cayman Property Consulting, acting on behalf of the current landlord, who said in the submission to the CPA, “Since that closure we have received numerous comments from local business owners and workers about the lack of lunchtime food offerings in George Town. In tandem with the George Town Revitalisation Project (GTRP), our proposal is to completely renovate the exterior of our property to align with the GTRP principles in terms of design, landscaping, lighting, seating and urban living.”
Bringing life back into George Town
According to the application, the three units “would bring some much-needed life back into the area”, serving the lunchtime and tourist markets during the day and local residents at night.
“We envisage a variety of food offerings to include one healthy option, one local option and one typical sandwich/burger operation, each of which would likely be a satellite operation of an existing business located elsewhere on the island,” said the applicant in a letter to the Central Planning Authority.
As the vast majority of customers would be office workers or cruise ship passengers and arrive by foot, no extra parking is being sought in the application.
“Whilst we understand that development and planning regulations require one space per 200 square feet of restaurant space, we would counter that these units are not sit-down restaurants that require parking but rather food pick-up points which will be used solely by foot traffic during the day, with vehicular traffic likely only in the evenings or weekends at which times we can provide eight parking spaces.”
Objection withdrawn
An objection to the application had been submitted over fears that it would “lower the value of properties in the area and create many problems including garbage and health issues.”
However the application has since been withdrawn after the objector saw the plans in detail.
Connelly, along with Mary Ann Villanueva, of TAG architects, represented the applicant in a meeting of the CPA in November and said that, contrary to the objections raised, there would be no issues of litter or hygiene because the operators would be experienced as they already ran food-and-beverage businesses elsewhere on island.
The Compass spoke to one of the store managers on Fort Street who said that they would welcome more places to eat in the local area.
“We definitely need more choice of places to get food here,” he said. “I’m always getting asked by cruise passengers where they can eat as there’s nowhere on this street, and it would be nice for people who worked here to have more choices here as well.”
Editors note: The original story has been updated to reflect that the objection to the proposals has been withdrawn.
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