The proposed 600-square-foot addition also would incorporate shopping cart storage and indoor/outdoor space for displaying fresh produce. There also would be outdoor seating there during non-winter months.
Plans call for the existing Boston Stoker coffee bar in the southeast corner of the building to be converted to an area for pizza and sandwich preparation.
“Every 10 years or so we look at adding some features to our Oakwood store. It’s in our DNA,” said chief executive Norman Mayne.
“For years, it’s been as if we’re trying to put two quarts of liquid into a one-quart container with that store.”
He said DLM only proposes to operate the drive-through coffee window from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. to avoid traffic problems and safety issues with the drive-up window at PNC Bank, which borders the grocery store to the south.
The addition would result in the loss of two parking spaces in the 55-space DLM lot and one in the PNC Bank lot, according to the Oakwood Planning Department.
It also would require users of the PNC drive-up window to exit onto either East Drive or Claranna Avenue. The driveway between the store and the bank from the service lane that parallels Far Hills Avenue would be restricted to one-way traffic, moving east only.
DLM, which also has stores in Washington Twp. and Springboro, has not expanded the Oakwood store since adding a 200-square-foot rear vestibule in 1996.
The proposed addition would create a more formal entrance from the rear parking lot. It would consume an area now occupied by a landscape planter and the area DLM uses for a 20-by-20-foot canopy during summer months for the sale of produce and other items. Accessible-parking spaces will be moved two spaces to the north.
The Oakwood store has 20,150 square feet on the first floor and a second-floor area of 2,000 square feet.
Preliminary plans for the addition were done by RDA Group Architects of Washington Twp.
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