Raising Cane’s wants to open in Meridian. A neighboring business owner voices concerns

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Raising Cane’s wants to open in Meridian. A neighboring business owner voices concerns

The much-hyped fast food chain Raising Cane’s plans to kick off its Idaho expansion with a drive-thru location in Meridian — but not before a pit stop at Meridian City Council.

The restaurant’s permit for a drive-thru on Eagle Road was originally greenlit by Meridian’s Planning and Zoning Commission. Thanks to an appeal brought by a concerned owner of an adjacent business, the City Council will now weigh in.

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Raising Cane’s is known for its “craveable chicken finger meals.”

The chicken-fingers restaurant from Louisiana, known for its signature Cane’s sauce, announced in April that it would be coming to Meridian, the Idaho Statesman

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. Now, it’s honed in on a location: 2700 N. Eagle Road, south of the shopping complex with Trader Joe’s at Eagle and Ustick roads.

The Cane’s would be Idaho’s first.

While super-fans — called “caniacs” — are thrilled about the expansion, which comes alongside hype that Meridian might be adding a

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restaurant on Ten Mile Road, some community members worry about traffic impacts and the store’s late hours of operation.

Representatives from Boise-based engineering and design firm Kimley-***** presented the restaurant’s permit application on Sept. 5 to the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission.

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A Raising Cane’s in California in 2022.

Some community members raised concerns, including Perry Coles, whose daughter, Allie, owns Copper Canary, a fine jewelry store directly south of where the Raising Cane’s is planned.

“We have an infrastructure problem,” Coles told the Statesman.

Coles believes the proposed drive-thru lanes are too close to other large developments in a small area east of Eagle Road and that when lanes fill up, cars will have “nowhere to go,” he said.

In addition to the existing shopping center with Trader Joe’s, Five Guys and a drive-thru Fireside Subs, directly east of the Raising Cane’s property, there are plans for a 130-room hotel. Beyond that is a 340-unit apartment complex in its final stages of construction, part of the Sessions Parkway Subdivision. Southeast of that are 336 existing apartment units in the Regency complex at River Valley.

Coles worries that a popular drive-thru restaurant like Raising Cane’s will add too much traffic onto a two-lane, 25-foot-wide collector road that runs north to south from Fireside Subs to Copper Canary, sitting between Raising Cane’s and the coming Wyndham Hotel.

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Fast food restaurant Raising Cane’s, known for its chicken fingers, is coming to Meridian off Eagle Road north of The Village at Meridian.

“It is chaotic,” Coles said. “We’re afraid of our employees and our customers getting access, somebody getting hurt. … You can’t even imagine.”

Another concern raised at the public hearing was the restaurant’s hours of operation. Raising Cane’s plans to be open until 1:30 a.m. Sunday through Thursday nights and 3:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday nights.

RV Vann, a spokesperson from Raising Cane’s, said at the hearing that the requested hours are flexible based on the market.

“If there’s no demand, we won’t stay open,” Vann said.

“There won’t be loud music playing … . We don’t create an environment or a habitat for people to just come hang out just because we’re open. If we need to close, we’ll close.”

In a public comment, Doug Stern, who lives southwest of Eagle and Ustick roads, said, “Anybody who thinks that a restaurant open until 3:30 in the morning is not gonna attract kids and be a hangout has not worked in the fast food industry.”

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Raising Cane’s plans to open more Idaho restaurants after the one in Meridian, a representative told the city Planning and Zoning Commission.

The commission voted unanimously to approve the drive-thru permit without any modifications.

Typically, that would be the end. Conditional use permits are the purview of the commission.

But Coles decided to use a mechanism few are aware of: as an “affected party,” Coles appealed the Planning and Zoning Commission’s decision. Now, the appeal will be reviewed by the City Council on Nov. 6.

“This is one of those unusual circumstances,” Bill Parsons, planning supervisor in the city’s Planning Division, said of the appeal.

Parsons told the Statesman that the council will “determine if the project is conditioned appropriately to mitigate impacts to the adjacent properties.”

He said the council is evaluating the commission’s decision on the drive-thru permit alone, not the development as a whole. The council does have the ability to recommend that Raising Cane’s “make modifications to the site plan to address some of those concerns” Parsons said, but is not in a position to deny the project outright.

That’s fine with Coles: “My goal is to try and figure it out,” he said.

As a business owner himself, Coles said he is not opposed to the restaurant or to growth.

He wants the City Council to “have a say.” That’s why he chose to pay the $1,200 cost of the appeal and public noticing, he said.

He hopes the developer will consider widening the north-to-south collector road or adding additional space for cars to stack up within the property before spilling out onto the collector and Eagle Road.

“I think there are ways to figure this thing out, so that they can come in and run a successful business,” he said. “They just can’t run over everything.”

Parsons said city planning staff “didn’t see an issue” with the project’s design for traffic circulation. “It met the drive-thru standards in the ordinance,” he told the Statesman.

He pointed out that the proposed drive-thru has two lanes and an exit lane. Still, he said, stacking “is always a potential when you have a new business showing up in town.”

Parsons said the Idaho Transportation Department originally requested information on trip generation, with potential for a traffic-impact study, but has dropped that request. ITD did not respond to the Statesman’s request for comment.

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The proposed Raising Cane’s will be located across from a planned Wyndham hotel.

When asked about traffic concerns, Trevor Gasser of GFI Meridian Investments LLC, a development firm that owns the Sessions Parkway Subdivision, told the Statesman: “We’re not concerned about it. We’ve planned for it.”

Raising Cane’s, Gasser said, “has always done a really good job managing circulation, and so we’re confident that that circulation will be managed and maintained.”

Michael O’Reilly, a representative from Kimley-*****, told the Planning and Zoning Commission: “Raising Cane’s wants to see this operate well as much as the rest of us. They plan on doing more stores in Idaho and don’t want this to be a traffic debacle.”

The City Council review on Nov. 6 will begin at 6 p.m. and will include a public hearing.

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