A team hoping to build Ocala’s first Raising Cane’s is asking the city to lower a parking space requirement at a shopping center along State Road 200 so that the restaurant can be constructed on an outparcel at the plaza.
The request will come before the Ocala Planning and Zoning Commission during its regular meeting on Wednesday, November 13.
The property is owned by George N. Snelling, LLC, and the agent representing the project is Davis L. Dinkins of Davis Dinkins Engineering.
The group is requesting a public hearing to reduce the number of required parking spaces at the Ocala West shopping plaza (2400 SW College Road) from around 800 to 642.
The shopping plaza currently shares parking spaces with a RaceWash Car Wash that was built on an outparcel in 2021. That RaceWash is situated next to the planned parcel where the Raising Cane’s would be located.
Because the request amounts to the removal of more than 10% of the parking spaces in use, city staff determined that a public hearing “for reduction in parking requirements in excess of ten percent” would be required “prior to site plan submittal.”
According to the city, the site is currently developed with 796 parking spaces for all of the existing businesses within the shopping center, including Hobby Lobby, Twistee Treat, and Blocker’s Furniture.
City records also show that the applicant contracted Kittelson & Associates to prepare a parking analysis. That analysis showed that the shopping center required a “peak parking demand” of 555 parking spaces, or 241 spaces less than the current requirement.
Regardless of the PZC’s recommendation, the request for the public hearing will be presented to the Ocala City Council for final approval during the first week of December, according to the city staff report.
Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers was founded in 1996 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by Todd Graves and Craig Silvey. As of this Spring, there are over 800 locations across the world.
In recent years, the chicken finger chain has been aggressively expanding throughout the Sunshine State.
The first of three planned locations in the Orlando opened in that area in late 2023. A second location in Orlando has since opened, as well as several others in nearby Winter Park and Kissimmee. Another location in Altamonte Springs will open in January.
