Warrawong about to become a fast-food focus

A development application before Wollongong City Council proposes to build three restaurants with drive-throughs on the King Street site once occupied by JB Hi-Fi.

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The three outlets will sit side-by-side in an east-west configuration, with the southern driveway widened to serve as an access point.

At this stage no tenants for the three proposed restaurants have been named.

The application has come from the Griffin Group, which bought the Bayview Centre site last year for $35 million.

Already on the table for the site is the redevelopment of the empty Bunnings store into five smaller retail tenancies - which quashed earlier hopes a Costco or IKEA would move to Wollongong.

"The proposed development is consistent with surrounding land uses in the locality and will enable a mix of specialised retail premises and food and drink premises that are highly accessible, which will contribute to the viability of the Warrawong commercial core," the application stated.

It is planned for the fast-food restaurants to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Each outlet is expected to have a maximum of 10 staff at work at any one time.

The three outlets will see "200 or more motor vehicles per hour", according to the statement of environmental effects.

In the morning peak an estimated 181 extra vehicle movements will be created with the weekday evening peak expected to be the busiest time for the fast-food outlets, with 315 extra vehicle movements an hour.

Combined with the proposed redevelopment of the former Bunnings site, the expected traffic during the Saturday peak hour will be 579 vehicle movements - 125 fewer than when the hardware store was operational.

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