South Regal Lumber challenge: make a drive-through warehouse succeed
Saturday's business section story featured plans by owners of South Regal Lumber to relocate their yard to a new location, about four blocks away on East 57th.
They essentially traded their current site for a commercial parcel owned by Cyrus Vaughn, who is still owner of Cyrus O'Leary's Pies.
The lumber yard is contemplating using the very odd physical feature of that new parcel (whose address is 3209 & 3223 E. 57th) to create a drive-through lumber yard. The story gives some details on how that works.
South Regal Lumber Manager Scott Case said the thin strip of land stretching from roughly South 55th to 57th would not normally be usable for commercial development. But with some ingenuity, they've conceived of a way that drivers can enter the drive-through and proceed along the warehouse, without having to leave a vehicle. The actual drive-through would not start at 57th, but somewhere closer to another proposed South Regal showroom retail store, off the street.
The photo here shows the total parcel on 57th, shaded in brown. The site purchased by the lumber yard owners does not include the storage units that lie north of the commercial buildings that were acquired by South Regal's owners (Moran Prairie Shopping Center).
The long narrow strip on the left that runs up to the top left corner of the rectangle is the proposed site for the drive-through. It would sit betwixt the two storage areas in that neighborhood.