Eat’n Park begins construction of new Peters Township location
Work has begun on a new Eat’n Park at the intersection of Washington and Hidden Valley roads in Peters Township, and it is likely the restaurant’s existing location – less than a mile away – could become a Dunkin’ Donuts, developers said.
The new Eat’n Park location is the anchor of the $4 million Peters Township Marketplace. It will be 7,400 square feet in size, double the size of the existing restaurant, and have 237 seats and 90 parking spaces, said Kevin O’Connell, Eat’n Park’s senior vice president of marketing.
“We opened there in 1960 when the Peters area was a lot smaller,” he said. “Peters has literally outgrown that location.”
The new eatery, which is being constructed next to Bob Evans, is expected to open by the end of the year, O’Connell said. It will feature a private dining room, where the minimum order has to be $30, natural lighting, a counter with a television behind it and a pick-up window, something that the local restaurant chain began adding to its new locations in 2008.
“It’s just going to be a much nicer place with a lot more seating,” O’Connell said. “The pick-up window allows people not to get out of their cars.”
The remaining commercial space at the 12,000-square-foot Peters Township Marketplace is expected to be leased by a bank and some small service-related businesses, said project developer Blaise Larkin, president of Madison Realty Group LLC, based in Downtown Pittsburgh.
“We’re getting close with the bank,” said Larkin, who declined to identify the bank. He added that a lot of people have expressed an interest in the location, which is passed daily by 30,000 vehicles. “We are trying to determine which businesses would have the best synergy and that would be those that are more service related.”
“It is the best undeveloped hard corner in Peters,” he added.
Meanwhile, Dunkin’ Donuts expects to make a decision by the end of the year whether it will open a location at the current Eat’n Park site at 3528 Washington Road, said Michael Orie, vice president of real estate for Heartland Restaurant Group LLC of Pittsburgh, which scouts potential locations for the doughnut giant.
Orie declined to go into specifics, but a Dunkin’ Donuts would take a portion of the current Eat’n Park restaurant location on Washington Road.
“We are considering the location and have high interest,” Orie said. “I feel very positive about our prospects there.”