Residents push back against Winter Park Dunkin' Donuts

A new Dunkin’ Donuts planned along Fairbanks Avenue has some local residents digging their heels in with concerns of noise and headlights at night – leading to questions of what businesses will fit along the major road.

The new donut stop is proposed for a lot at the east corner of the intersection of Fairbanks Avenue and Blue Heron Drive, across the street from Triangle Auto Parts. It’s the latest project to come up along Fairbanks Avenue, a street that the city of Winter Park has been looking to beautify and improve over the past several years.

But, for some local residents, the donut shop isn’t welcome. The main culprit mentioned at Tuesday’s Winter Park Planning and Zoning meeting: a drive-through window open late at night near several residential homes.

“I have a big issue with the noise levels that will come,” said resident Ruby Hornborg, who lives directly behind the proposed property.

“I have an office that I work out of in my house…it would be pointed directly at my office. I would not be able to work. I don’t care how much of a wall you’re going to put up, it’s not going to block the noise. You’re going to have people with the boom boxes going and their tires squealing.”

“I am a two-home resident; I have a tenant there as well,” resident Deborah Kirkland said. “My tenant is actually closest to the Dunkin’ Donuts, so it will adversely affect my income as well.”

“I’m quite sure that with lights and sounds going into the bedroom windows of my tenants, I’m going to have a hard to renting out the unit from that point on.”

Other residents like Kelly Shirley felt that a Dunkin’ Donuts isn’t exactly a step in the right direction for improving Fairbanks Avenue.

“This is not a good reverence for Winter Park,” he said.

Planning and Community Development Manager Jeff Briggs said he’s hopeful that more redevelopment will come to Fairbanks Avenue beyond the Dunkin’ Donuts. The city has already spent over $7 million to pay for new streetlights, traffic lights and repaving along Fairbanks Avenue in an attempt to make it more attractive to new businesses, he said. A $12 million project to underground power lines along the street is also on the horizon.

The lot for the proposed Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t leave much room for other kinds of development due to its shallow size, Briggs said. There could be more options for sit down restaurants or office buildings at other lots along Fairbanks, but right now the risk appears to be too great for developers to buy in.

“We’re trying to pave the way so that others can come and redevelop,” Briggs said.

“I think the holdup is the current image of the street. No one wants to be a pioneer. Everybody wants to be where they already see success around them…. That’s the reluctance.”

Resident Julie Smith said that the city should embrace whatever positive commercial development they can.

“The redevelopment is, I think, very important for the area,” she said. “You all know that that part of Fairbanks is called ‘Scarebanks’ and we’re all trying to do things to make that better.”

“We have to look at the whole area as whole, and I think more commercial development is going to help us.”

The Dunkin’ Donuts project was tabled by Planning and Zoning to see if more adjustments could be made to the design of the building and the location of the drive-through window to appease nearby residents.