Herculaneum residents are all a flurry after hearing a McDonald’s will soon be in their town.
Herculaneum Mayor Ryan Wright said McDonald’s anticipates breaking ground April 4 and hopes to be open for business by December.
The address of the new restaurant will be 1188 Herculaneum Crossing and will be located near Scenic Drive Dental Center at 1171 Scenic Drive.
Plans for the restaurant include a 4,200-square-foot building with an occupancy load of 81 people. The restaurant will have a drive thru, but no PlayPlace. It will also feature self-service kiosks inside.
Wright said he’s excited to finally have a restaurant coming to undeveloped space.
“We were looking for a little restaurant to go there for a while. We’ve reached out to a lot of companies. Nobody really quite seemed interested until McDonald’s,” Wright said.
Wright said the city offered an incentive package of $200,000 to many businesses to entice them to come to Herculaneum.
“We are offering 200 grand, but that is including us moving water lines, some sewer drains, lights, storm water runoffs and curb cutouts. We’re basically spending 200 grand for infrastructure improvements around the site,” Wright said.
Wright said a McDonald’s could add $3.5 million to 4 million in revenue for the location, and the city should be able to make back the incentive money in sales taxes in just over a year.
“McDonald’s really does a lot of business. Their projected sales revenue is double that of like a Burger King or a Wendy’s. So we were excited about that. It’s going to help bring in a lot of revenue for the police and the fire departments,” Wright said.
Herculaneum City Administrator Logan Jaskiewicz said the city has been trying to find some businesses to fill undeveloped areas along McNutt Road, but said many businesses have been reluctant to come to Herculaneum because of the town’s small population, not understanding the volume of traffic that comes through the area on a daily basis from the interstate.
Jaskiewicz said McDonald’s saw the potential in the area and was willing to give Herculaneum a chance.
Jaskiewicz said he hopes once other businesses see that the area is able to support multiple gas stations and restaurants, including this new McDonald’s, they’ll be more interested in opening a location in Herky.
Wright agreed. “McDonald’s is kind of an anchor store. Once you get a McDonald’s in, a lot of people try to be next to it,” Wright said. “We think this is the first stepping stone to allowing us to bring in more revenue-generating businesses that the public is really going to like.”