Bob Evans Presents Revised Plans for New Detroit Avenue Restaurant

Take the “down on the farm” image of a traditional Bob Evans building and give it an urban reinvention.

That’s sort of the look of the chain restaurant’s designs for Lakewood, expected for the corner of Detroit Avenue and Park Haven Row.

But the city’s architectural board of review hopes that the restaurant chain will tone down its design plans for Bob Evans’ first location in the city.

The last time the restaurant appeared before the board, city officials had some revision suggestions.

Those included reducing the number of curb cuts to two and altering the “barn” style roof of the traditional buildings.

The architects for Bob Evans came back to the city with some new designs on Thursday.

But, board members still had a couple of issues — among them, are the proposed materials of the roof, the color of the brick and the large sign.

“It’s allowable, but it’s not appropriate,” said ABR member Carl Orban of the signage. “Nobody is going to miss this building — with this red, the entire building is a sign.”

“I am still having a problem with the overall look of the building,” added board member Cynthia Stockman. “It’s the main entrance to the downtown. There’s too much going on with the colors. It’s so busy.”

Andrew Hubbard, the director of design for the restaurant, said that the company won’t likely budge too many more of the design changes.

“We’ve been here three times,” he told the board. “Every time, we’ve tried to respond. There is a limit to what we’re able to spend on this building.

“We feel strongly about this concept. We’ve tried to add the pieces and parts that we’ve talked about over the past two meetings.”

In the end, officials from the restaurant chain agreed to tweak the plans, and resubmit them.

City officials have said they’re concerned with the property should the restaurant ever decided to leave.

“We’re very nervous this ends up with a Pizza-Hut-style look,” said Orban. “When it leaves — and all who left are the residents — the new guy (might not be able to) afford to change the roofline.”

Hubbard responded that the company is trying “to be here for the long haul.”

“We’ve been around since 1953,” he said.

The board and architects for Bob Evans ironed out some of the final details — including brick colors and adding some trees at the south of the property.

“We included some more landscaping around the front, provided a rain garden in the back, and plan to add some trees to the west elevation,” said Hubbard. “The idea is that it won’t look like the back of a typical restaurant.”

The board is expected to vote on the final plans at an upcoming meeting.