What goes down will be coming back up in about four months, if all goes as planned.
Like its sister restaurants on Vernon Avenue and in Snow Hill, the McDonald’s restaurant on U.S. 70 — across from Lenoir Community College — will emerge from a rebuild as a brand new arcade-style facility.
Wade Dixon, owner of Dixon Food Group — which owns 20 McDonald’s in Lenoir, Greene, Wayne and Pitt counties — said the old 1979 building will begin to be demolished by Monday, if not earlier.
“We’ll start emptying out some of the contents of the building tomorrow,” he said Monday.
Typically, it takes about 100 days to demolish and rebuild, but Dixon said there is some additional work involved with an old drainage pipe underneath the building, so he’s calculating a possible 20 extra days.
The infrastructure will be replaced and the site will be raised as much as 3 feet higher, as there was some flooding when Hurricane Floyd swept through Lenoir County, he said.
The new restaurant will have more than 5,000 square feet, which will increase seating from about 85 seats to nearly 100 seats.
This McDonald’s will feature an indoor play area of about 80 square feet with a digital projection system. Various digital games will be projected onto the floor for patrons of all ages to play soccer, pop balloons or jump on lily pads.
“We just put one in in Greenville,” Dixon said, “and it’s been a big hit.”
The interior décor will feature large local photos of LCC and downtown sites on acrylic windows, Dixon said.
The interior accent color will be LCC’s royal blue color, he said.
“And we will add a side-by-side drive-through in the same location,” he said.
While Dixon wouldn’t divulge the cost, he said it will cost “lots” and is a 20-year decision.”
McDonald’s Corporation has a goal of having 60 percent of all its restaurants in the new style by 2015, Dixon said.
“My personal goal,” he said, “is to be, at the end of 2015, at 75 percent of my locations with the new style.”
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com.