Kyle to be without a Queen for “a few months”

No word yet on when the reigning Dairy Queen will abdicate be demolished or exactly when her successor will be crowned open, but the architect involved in the project to essentially turn what is estimated to be a 40-plus year old structure 90 degrees to the left guessed today Kyle will be without a Dairy Queen for "a few months."

After this evening's 20-minute P&Z meeting, during which the commissioners chose Timothy Kay as their vice chair and voted 6-0 (commissioner Lori Huey missed the meeting) to approve a conditional use permit to construct a new Diary Queen on the site occupied by the current one at the southeastern corner of I-35 and Ranch Road 150, its architect, Greg Guerin of Forney, Texas, when asked specifically how long Kyle will be without a Diary Queen, replied "I don’t do the construction. I know some of these restaurants can get complete within a few months. I know construction is going to take at least a few months."

When asked when demolition/construction would begin, Guerin said "Hopefully, we get building plans submitted next month and then maybe get a permit within a couple months, we should be able to start. The owner would like to start as soon as possible."

Put all that non-specificity together and my guess is the new facility could be open right around the beginning of 2017, if everything falls neatly into place.

Guerin said one of the reasons for replacing the building, in addition to its age, was to alleviate a drive-through traffic flow that often caused backups on the northbound I-35 service road. He said the main entrance to the new Diary Queen, which will be almost exactly the same size as the current one (about 3,000 square feet), will be on Ranch Road 150 and cars will flow from the entrance in a southerly direction to the pickup window which will be located on the south side of the building. He said parking for those wishing to eat inside the restaurant will be located on the western (I-35) side of the property and that area will contain three lanes of traffic so as not to interfere with the drive-through customers.

No one at tonight’s meeting could tell me definitively when the current Diary Queen was constructed, but Guerin said the overwhelming majority of the restaurants still standing in Texas were erected in the 1970s.

Not counting chairman Mike Rubsam, the gender division of the Planning & Zoning Commission is three men and three women. I bring that up only because all three men — Kay, Dex Ellison and Brad Growt — nominated themselves to be the commission’s vice-chair (a position that has been vacant since Mike Wilson’s term expired several months ago). Although Kay claimed to be the most senior of the three nominees, according to the city’s web site, both his and Ellison’s term commenced last Sept, 15.