Nourse Auto drops Western Avenue plans, eyes Guernsey Crossing lot

CHILLICOTHE - The Nourse family of auto dealerships is dropping plans for a car dealership on Western Avenue but is gathering the necessary approvals for a Nissan lot near the Guernsey Crossing shopping center on North Bridge Street.

In June, Dick Nourse, managing member with QNP Acquisitions, LLC, had a request before the city's Planning Commission requesting a rezoning change and lot split for property he had acquired at 989 Western Ave just east of Hopewell Health Centers. Some community opposition arose to the plan at that location, and Nourse told the Gazette at the time that he decided to postpone his request before the Planning Commission for a month.

Since that time, he said he decided to drop the proposal.

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"There's other options," he said following Wednesday's Planning Commission meeting. "There were some other issues in addition to (opposition to the plan). One problem that I thought we would get through pretty easy was I thought we would get an easement to the traffic light and that didn't work itself out ... so it made that in and out (to the property) pretty difficult."

In the meantime, Nourse closed one of his North Bridge Street lots located between the BP station and Applebee's near North Plaza Boulevard. That property is being sold to developers of a Raising Cane's chicken finger restaurant planned for a spring opening.

With the proceeds from that sale, Nourse is in the final stages of acquiring more than two acres of land in front of Guernsey Crossing between the Panera Bread building and Seney Road.

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"What we're going to do with the property, in conjunction with Guernsey Crossing, is we're going to develop the property into a Nissan secondary location," Nourse told the Planning Commission. "It's just going to be a sales location, not a service or parts or body shop or anything like that."

The location will deal with new and used vehicles, primarily trucks, and will supplement Nourse's primary Nissan dealership in its auto mall further south along Bridge Street. Its design will follow the Nissan "N-Ready" concept. 

The Planning Commission agreed to a conditional use for the property to allow the plan to move forward.

The board also agreed to a request from Nourse to approve a lot split of a thin stretch of the parking lot just to the east of Kohl's on River Trace Lane that has been used by the dealership through an agreement with Kohl's as parking spaces to store some of the auto mall's inventory when needed. Nourse is working toward a deal for the sale of that stretch of the parking lot, and he told the Planning Commission that no changes are expected to be made to the property once the sale is finalized and that it will continue being used for inventory parking.