A popular Midwest drive-in fast food chain that has in recent years expanded its reach to the West Coast is expected to call Chehalis home, but exactly when that will happen is unclear.
The Chehalis City Council voted to approve a lease agreement between the city and SERJ Drive-Ins Washington, a franchisee for Sonic Drive-In, for a parcel of land on the southeast corner of Louisiana Avenue and Arkansas Way. The Chehalis-Centralia Airport, which is owned and operated by the city of Chehalis, owns the land.
Dennis Osborn, community development director for the city of Chehalis, said the agreement is the first step in the process that otherwise hasn’t seen any movement.
“They’ve agreed to terms on the property, but we don’t have any site plans or a permit application at this time,” Osborn said Thursday.
The lease terms, as made publicly available in a packet provided to city councilors for a Feb. 23 meeting, call for a 25-year lease with three 10-year option periods. SERJ Drive-Ins Washington will pay the city $3,000 per month plus a leasehold excise tax.
The lease was signed on SERJ’s behalf by Jasmin R. Patel of Orange County, California, who is described as the company’s corporate officer in a notarized acknowledgement of the lease terms.
Jason Acock, a spokesperson for Sonic Drive-Ins, said he could not confirm whether a Sonic location was opening up in Chehalis because no permit information was available.
Sonic Drive-In was founded in Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1953 according to the company’s website, and changed its name six years later. The company has more than 3,500 locations across the United States, with the closest to Lewis County in Puyallup and Tacoma.
The lease signifies the first movement on any possible real estate development since construction crews connected Louisiana Avenue with Airport Road to link the cities of Chehalis and Centralia on the west side.
The city of Chehalis in late 2014 also had requested money from the Distressed County Fund for construction of an extension of Arkansas Way, which is connected to Louisiana Avenue.
