The owner of the McDonald's restaurant at Station Medical Center plans to raze and rebuild this summer.
The work will take three months.
"The building is 35 years old," said Jerry Harrington, president of Harrington Management Inc., which owns three other McDonald's in the area. "It's tired."
The new restaurant - based on an intensively tested company design - will look much like the new McDonald's on Plank Road, Harrington said.
The setup and equipment will work better with "the way we produce things nowadays," Harrington said.
It will include a double-lane drive-through and a more efficient front counter, with ordering at one end and pick up at the other, he said.
"We'll have better capability for processing orders with more accuracy and speed," he said.
The kitchen will also be more efficient than the current one, which is "narrow and tight."
Harrington gets to pick the decor package.
He took the initiative for the change, but McDonald's signed off on the request, he said.
The new store will be 45,000 square feet, which is 600 more than the current one, said city Planning Director Lee Slusser. The city Planning Commission has approved land development for the project.
While the current store is perpendicular to Ninth Avenue, the new one will be parallel to the avenue, Slusser said.
The reorientation of the building, along with extending the project into what is now a grassy area near Ninth Avenue, will allow for the bigger drive-through and an increase of 18 parking spaces, to 60, Slusser said.
The new restaurant will feature outdoor seating, Slusser said.
Harrington also owns the McDonald's in the food court at Logan Valley Mall and locations in Huntingdon and Mount Union.
While the raze-and-rebuild method forfeits 90 days' worth of business, the new store will recoup the location's clientele almost immediately - and more, Harrington predicted.
Customers tend to await the reopening eagerly, he said.
McDonald's has projected an increase in business for the site, but he's not at liberty to share the figures, he said. Nor is he at liberty to share the cost of the project, he said.
The Station Medical Center location has proven to be a good one through the years, Harrington said. He bought it in 2010 from his father-in-law Pete Williams.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.
