McDonald’s demolition begins next week

Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 4, 2010

McDonald’s faithful customers have until Sunday to enjoy their Big Macs and Egg McMuffins.

Operations Manager Mike Sanicola said Wednesday McDonald’s officials have decided to tear down the more than 35-year-old building and rebuild from the ground up.

“We’ll be open until around 8 p.m. on Sunday,” Sanicola said. “I’ll clean the store out, and then I plan on turning it over the construction crew on Thursday. It should be demolished on Friday.

“It’s going to be a complete knock down,” he said. “It’s going to make things look a lot better.”

Sanicola said one new feature will be a double drive-thru lane.

He also said they are going to try and incorporate a special spot for the daily coffee crew.

“We did a similiar thing when we rebuilt the Enterprise store,” Sanicola said.

But, McDonald’s lovers shouldn’t worry, as the rebuild is expected to take less than three months and the restaurant should be up and running by the summer and just in time for beach traffic.

“We are expecting the whole project to take about 75 to 85 days,” Sanicola said. “We are hoping to open in mid-to-late May.”

Sanicola said once the new building is finished it will be similar to the McDonald’s in Enterprise or Troy, which has contemporary décor on the inside and the outside has a new design with stone faade.

For the nearly 40 employees who work there, Sanicola said they have been offered an opportunity to work at either the Luverne or Enterprise location until construction is complete.

“Basically, they are all going to come back,” he said.

“Of course, we’ll have to do a rehire, but we’ll have basically our same staff.”