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A decision to build height restrictors at the entrance to the Lake Village Shopping Center has made the city of Warsaw happy and some fast-food restaurants upset.
The shopping center management firm, Wal-Go, started construction of the height restrictors this week. They are intended solely to keep out the semis that park there day and night.
"The parking lot wasn't built for semi traffic," said Kim Leake, Warsaw's superintendent of public works, Tuesday. "It wasn't built as a truck stop. It doesn't have the base or the right amount of asphalt to hold heavy trucks."
But truck drivers account for a lot of Hardee's customers, said general manager Joe Wells, who is not happy about the height restrictor installation. "I don't understand why they're doing it," he said. "The truckers shop in all the stores here, they're vital for all of us."
Wells estimated that 20 percent of his restaurant's business is from truck drivers, and said the end of their patronage may lead to layoffs at Hardee's.
"In the long run we'll probably drop our third shift," he said. "They're most of our third shift business."
An assistant manager at Wendy's said approximately 20 percent of their night customers are truck drivers, but she was not aware of the daytime volume. She said the truck prohibition would affect Wendy's business, but probably not as much as it would Hardee's.
Leake spoke Tuesday afternoon from his cell phone while he was in the Lake Village parking lot. He said at that time 11 semis were parked in the lot.
The trucks can weigh between 70,000 and 80,000 pounds each, he said, and some nights as many as 60 are parked there overnight.
Wal-Go is installing the height restrictors at their expense, he said, and after those are in, the company will re-pave the parking lot.
Wal-Go is eliminating truck traffic from the lot also because the company gave Warsaw an easement for the access road in front of the shopping center. Wal-Go will retain ownership of the road, and Warsaw will maintain it. Before the maintenance, however, the city has a great deal of work to do to repair the road and get rid of all the potholes.
Leake said that may have had an effect on Wal-Go's decision to install the height restrictors.
"We're not going to do all this extensive work to have the heavy trucks tear it up," he said.
The height restrictors also will prohibit buses from parking in the lot, Wells said, and the restaurant has always encouraged their patronage as well.
Leake said semis can still drive behind the stores to make deliveries, but will no longer be able to park in the lot.
