Class News

Paul Manchester '64 fights the Colonel

Civic association raises big bucks to keep fast-food restaurant out of Four Corners

Jan. 30, 2002
from The Gazette

"Help Kick the Colonel Out!" screamed the sign in bright red script. "Sign the petition. Donate to the legal fund. Volunteer time and talents."

In front of the sign was Paul Manchester of the Woodmoor-Pinecrest Citizens Association, and in front of him were 80 members who had crammed themselves into a public meeting room Wednesday night ― the biggest turnout in recent memory ― to hear Manchester's documented argument against an unwanted fast-food restaurant.

Manchester told the group that corporate-generated studies said a new 76-seat KFC/Pizza Hut restaurant and drive-through at University Boulevard and Lexington Drive would not create any additional traffic. The audience chuckled, certain that traffic would only be worse.

Manchester said the KFC/Pizza Hut studies said Montgomery County residents "were suffering from a shortage of fast-food restaurants in Montgomery County." Boisterous laughter broke out among the residents, a mixture of gray hairs and new families. They knew there were already a McDonald's, a Subway, a Starbucks, a Papa John's and a 7-Eleven within 150 yards of the proposed KFC.

Manchester said the KFC/Pizza Hut studies said there wouldn't be any impact on the neighboring homes and property values. A man standing in the back row guffawed. "It just screams re-sale, don't it!"

When it came time to call for the motions to first oppose the new restaurant, and then to fund their legal plight, there wasn't a single vote in opposition.

By the time the meeting was over, the civic group had agreed to spend up to $8,000 out of its treasury fund. They hoped to raise an additional $6,000 specifically for the fight. The 1,100-home neighborhood had already donated $1,000 on a door-to-door drive the weekend before, and bake sales and more organized efforts were already under way.

"We feel that the only reason they would consider locating to that area is because of the high school across the street," said Billie Cirrincione, a 30-year resident of the neighborhood. Indeed, 3,000 students come to school right across University every day to Blair High School.

Ron Taylor of Whitmoor Terrace has lived in the neighborhood for three years, and holding his check for $35, he said there is a real need to keep the fast food conglomerate away from their homes because traffic will be unmanageable.

"We don't need another restaurant over there," he said.

That is not the belief, however, held by Tricon Global, the public corporation that operates the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands. The corporation owns more than 30,000 restaurants and made $22 billion in sales worldwide in 2000, according to its Web site. For 2002, the company expects its revenue to grow faster than the national economy at 6 to 7 percent.

Its growth strategy works well with the plans for the Woodmoor Shopping Center, said Henry Renaud, vice president of First Washington Inc., the company that manages the shopping center.

He calls the problems a typical disconnect between neighborhoods and members of the real estate community.

Renaud said the shopping center is willing to work with neighbors, and has in the past, including its willingness to take down a gas station that faced Colesville Road to improve the looks of the shopping center.

"I think some people understand and appreciate what we've done, and some people don't," Renaud said.

Emily Vaias, the attorney representing Tricon in the county meetings, said Tricon has tried to make the restaurant as agreeable to the neighbors as possible.

She said the plans would remove a dumpster in the back and there would be a grove of trees between the restaurant and the nearby homes.

And as far as traffic management, Vaias said it shouldn't be a problem. "The trips here are going to be people who are already passing by on University Boulevard. ... It's a convenience for other people who are already driving by."

The Montgomery County Planning Board's hearing on the plans is tentatively scheduled for March 21, and the Board of Appeals will decide on the exception April 3.

But the members of the civic association believe this is their only chance to save the neighborhood from surging traffic inviting uninvited drivers and generally eroding their small but proud kingdom.

"We're still sort of a David and Goliath situation, but sometimes, David wins," Manchester said this week. At the very least, the neighborhood would like to see plans that didn't include a drive-through, he said. Manchester said he is also trying to enlist other civic groups in the fight when hearings begin.

And whether the new restaurant fits into the grand scheme of restaurant needs in the county misses the point, Cirrincione said. A few years ago, Einstein Bagels was going to come to the shopping center, and even though the effort eventually failed, the neighborhood supported it.

"We want [the shopping center] to be successful because it adds convenience to our lives. ... We just feel that what goes on there has to complement the neighborhood. ...

"If you cannot park there easily, people will stop going there."