City Still Not Loving McDonald's Plan

McDonald’s may be introducing a Santa Fe flavor to San Juan Capistrano and we’re not talking about the condiments on a burger.

The latest incarnation of a proposed new McDonald’s features a Mediterranean style, said architect and local resident Jim Bickel.

But members of the city’s Design Review Committee said they see more New Mexico than Spain in the design.

“We’re not into the Santa Fe style,” committee member Robert Williams told Patch. The Design Review Committee looked at the latest drawings last week and had a few more suggestions, such as ditching the vigas, the wooden, exterior beams that project from the building.

McDonald’s has been working on a design to please city officials since last year, when it first proposed a contemporary style, what Williams called “George Jetson.” 

The total redo will be the first major project to go before the city since the City Council approved the Historic Town Center Master Plan last year.

Initially, city leaders suggested McDonald’s consider an architectural style that celebrates the area’s agrarian past. That didn’t fly at all, Bickel said.

“Oak Brook [home of McDonald’s corporate headquarters] came flat back and said, ‘No, we’re not going to do that,’” he said.

Bickel said he wasn’t married to the vigas and could make other changes. The project, however will need special permission to override some of the new rules put into place last year, especially those concerning landscape and the new building’s distance from the curb.

The plan calls for pushing new development closer to the street and creating a pedestrian atmosphere, said Bill Ramsey, acting development services director.

Bickel said McDonald’s ability to bypass those rules are a deal-breaker.

“Any major deviation from the site plan that has been presented before would impact their business so negatively it would make it not worth doing,” he said.

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