Aetos Holdings, parent company of Wendy’s, Marco’s Pizza and Popeye’s restaurants in The Bahamas has received approval from the Town Planning Committee to operate a Wendy’s restaurant on Paradise Island.
Chairman of the Town Planning Committee, Keenan Johnson spoke with ZNS News on the decision that came after initial approval given earlier this year was set aside due to objections. Johnson said, “we made the decision and now its either up to the appeals board to move ahead if it is appealed, if it’s not appealed then I don’t see anything that stops them from continuing with the process.”
Johnson is satisfied that the right decision was made by his committee. “There was nothing that caused parking to be an issue because there was no drive through, among other things, we felt as though traffic wouldn’t have been a real concern. We had the request from Atlantis and other parties that were against it to delay our decision, we decided that it was not necessary to delay the decision.”
The Committee Chair added, “there were a few things that were taken into consideration. One was, we looked at the site plan, we looked at the surrounding area, we looked at the restrictive covenants and there was nothing that restricted that type of business in that area.”
As far as the transparency of the decision making process Johnson explained, “we all about transparency and that’s what we’ve been trying to do. Our concern is not so much about the media attention. Our concern is about making sure that the general public is aware of what is going on and have an opportunity to weigh in.”
The future Wendy’s restaurant will be operating from the old Scotiabank building on Paradise Island.
