SALISBURY — At their May 21 meeting, the Salisbury City Council chose to approve a request to rezone two parcels on 410 W. Jake Alexander Boulevard at the intersection of Castlewood Drive from residential mixed-use to corridor mixed-use to allow for the construction of a new coffee shop.

Senior Planner Victoria Bailiff said the two parcels take up 0.87 acres and are within city limits. Currently, the property is vacant and “most vegetation” has been removed. Bailiff also said the city’s planning board already recommended the request be endorsed on April 23 and that they believe it to be “consistent with the Forward 2040 comprehensive plan.” 

Applicant John Leatherman said the business will be called Clutch Coffee, a franchise that has 11 locations across North and South Carolina. The proposed coffee shop will be 860 square feet, have 10 parking spaces, and operate exclusively through a drive thru. Leatherman sent a memo stating there would be no more than 11 cars on the property 95 percent of the time, but Salisbury transportation staff have not been “provided with sufficient information in an adequate amount of time to confirm the conclusions made by the analysis,” according to Bailiff. 

“As a person who loves coffee houses and coffee, I think it would be good to actually have a coffee house on that side of town because we have coffee houses along West Innes. Of course there is Juice Life and Dunkin,’ but you got to drive further up to go to Julian to go to Starbucks. So, it be good to have something like that on that side of town,” council member Anthony Smith said.