What was shaping up to be a fight at City Council
over a zoning request from Prairie Farms Dairy may have been averted by a
neighborhood association’s fact-finding efforts.
Prairie Farms, which has been making ice cream mix at
its South MacArthur Boulevard facility since 1950, has a petition pending
that seeks permission to demolish the adjacent Dairy Queen and turn that
property into a parking lot. Prairie Farms was also asking the city to
waive the landscaping, screening and lighting required for parking lots.
Ward 7 Ald. Judy Yeager says constituents directly
behind the Dairy Queen were happy to accept tanker trucks in lieu of the
noise of Dairy Queen patrons. But others in the neighborhood didn’t
like the idea of tearing down a building to create a parking lot.
“We are trying our darndest to upgrade the look
and services available on MacArthur,” Yeager says, citing the new
facilities being built by Walgreens and Urgent Care, in accordance with
city landscaping codes.
But with six tanker trucks, four tractors, and two
“straight trucks,” Prairie Farms needs more space. “They
don’t have enough room, and they’ve admitted that,” says
Kathleen Sorensen, president of the Washington Park-Knolls Neighborhood
Association.
Sorensen says she was inclined to oppose to the Dairy
Queen demolition until she spent a morning monitoring on the Prairie Farms
facility. After watching trucks carefully avoid driving over curbs, and
watching motorists on MacArthur wait patiently as tankers blocked the road
to maneuver under the Prairie Farms canopy, she concluded that the
dairy’s request could end up improving the property — if
Prairie Farms agrees to the landscaping requirements.
“I’m still against the change in zoning.
We will not back down on that or the landscaping,” Sorensen says.
“But they are a good neighbor, they are a good business, and they
could actually improve that property.”
Springfield City Council will hear the zoning request
at its next meeting, June 21.
This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2005.
