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Taco Bell could be coming to Potsdam

Posted 10/30/16

By CRAIG FREILICH POTSDAM -- The owner of several Taco Bell franchises in New York wants to open one in Potsdam. “I’m very optimistic. I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity,” said …

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Taco Bell could be coming to Potsdam

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- The owner of several Taco Bell franchises in New York wants to open one in Potsdam.

“I’m very optimistic. I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity,” said developer Steve Pinkerton, an Ogdensburg native who runs Hospitality Syracuse, Inc.

Pinkerton told the Potsdam Village Planning Board Thursday that he wants to open one of the quick-serve restaurants at the corner of Market Street and Sisson Street.

He told the board he has purchased all of the Scott Ford property there and has an offer in on a residential property at 3 Sisson St., right next door, currently owned by James and Michelle Sheehan.

The offer on that property is contingent on approval of a zoning change on 3 Sisson St. from R-2 residential to B-1 business, Pinkerton said.

According to Allen Tunnell Corporation’s TaxLookup.net, the property is assessed at a total of $71,400.

The restaurant will go on the Scott Ford property and the residential site. The house on the lot would be taken down and the property the site of part of the restaurant, parking and a second entrance, the first being on Market Street, according to Planning Board Chair Jim Corbett.

No action was taken at the meeting, Corbett said. Pinkerton’s appearance at the meeting was only for a basic, preliminary presentation of his plan for the site.

Several steps will have to be taken before the project goes ahead, including the zoning change preceded by a hearing on it, an area variance, and a site plan review. The county Planning Board will also review the plan at more than one stage.

Corbett said his sense is that Pinkerton would like to get started “sooner rather than later.” He said he believes that, if everything goes through without complications, it will probably be December before all those steps would be accomplished and an approval would be in place.