The same people who are behind an effort to renovate, remodel and expand the aging Pleasant View Motel on Jeffco Boulevard just south of the Arnold city limits are turning their eyes south.
The Jefferson County Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-0 Nov. 17 to recommend approval of a request to rezone a 1.66-acre parcel just south of the motel to allow a self-storage facility to be built there.
The Jefferson County Council, which has the sole authority to rezone property in unincorporated areas, likely will consider the application at a meeting this month.
Jusco LLC of Arnold is asking that the lot be rezoned from non-planned community commercial to planned commercial.
The lot is mostly vacant and cleared, although along-shuttered white commercial building sits on the lot very close to the road.
The plan Jusco submitted calls for a single indoor self-storage building to be called Pleasant View Storage. The 36,000-square-foot, three-level building would include a small office and a single entrance off Jeffco Boulevard.
Dave Vonarx of VonArx Engineering in Hillsboro, who represented Jusco at the public hearing, said there would be no outside storage of RVs, boats or other vehicles.
“The building that is very close to the road would be torn down,” Vonarx said. “There would be a safer entrance and exit off the highway.”
That building formerly housed a used car lot and a furniture store.
Lori Arons, who lives near the site, said she feared that developing the property would make what she called an already dangerous area – with pedestrians making their way across the four-lane road to get to a nearby Dollar General store – even more treacherous.
“We have lots of storage facilities, especially along Hwy. 61-67,” she said.
She also said she had concerns that the developers would not maintain the self-storage site after it is built.
Vonarx said Jusco is putting a significant amount of money to redevelop the motel and would spend more to build the self-storage facility.
“They probably have more at stake than anyone else in the area,” he said. “It’s in their best interest to protect their investment.”
Vonarx said the aesthetics of the site would be improved, with the current building removed and landscaping planted along Jeffco Boulevard.