Plan Commission Handles Several Matters

The Effingham City Plan Commission has approved a plat of property to be redeveloped along Keller Drive.

The property is owned by or being acquired by John and Lisa Wortman. The land includes the location of a former Subway Restaurant, Days Inn Motel and Rodeway Inn. Plans are to utilize the former Subway site for a Chipotle Mexican Grill, with plans for the two motel sites still in the development stage.

In what's being termed Keller Drive Retail Park, one of the three lots will be for the former Subway site, one will be for the Rodeway Inn, and a third will be for the Days Inn property.

Commission members also recommended to the City Council the issuance of a special use permit for an indoor shooting range. The range will be housed in the former TSI Graphics building on South Raney at Mansfield Avenue. City Building Official Bruce Devall said the facility will house Accuracy Arms, now located south of the city, and a gunsmith. The building will feature eight-inch-thick concrete walls, louvers to make sure the bullets don't leave the building, air handling to limit lead emissions into the atmosphere, and noise baffling. A portion of the building will also be made available for retail or office space.

The Commission recommended a replat of property known as Johnston Subdivision. The land houses three homes, but the lots are not sufficient for R-1 single family residential. That led to a decision to replat the lots from one into three, one for each home, and a rezoning of the property to R-2 single family residential, meaning lots of the size the property will accommodate.

Commission members okayed a site plan for Park Ridge Apartments, the start of development of the land along the south side of Hendelmeyer Avenue, west of Village Apartments. Developer Keith Hartman plans to build two four-unit apartment structures on each of two lots, a total of four four-unit apartment buildings. The Commission also approved a site plan of Willowbrook of Effingham at 108 Veterans Drive, just to the east of existing similar facilities devoted to the care of those with Alzheimer's Disease or other forms of dementia.