The dispute over a sewer treatment center that was keeping restaurants from being built in Trophy Club has been resolved. The Trophy Club Town Council unanimously approved the site plan to expand the sewer plant Tuesday night, clearing the way for the restaurants to be built. Meat U Anywhere BBQ and Bread Winners Cafe were approved to connect to the Municipal Utility District’s water and sewer system Sept. 30. The next day, the town Planning & Zoning Commission approved the site plan for the district to expand is wastewater treatment center.
Because the treatment center is at capacity, it could not handle the two additional restaurants without being expanded. “They finally did the right thing,” said Russell Holley, who is selling the land for Meat U Anywhere. “I’m glad we can move on.”
Mayor Nick Sanders said the town staff will be meeting with utility district officials this week about a building permit. “We’re excited to hopefully get started very soon,” district general manager Jennifer McKnight said. The treatment center could add some capacity by mid-2016 if construction starts this month. The entire project will take about 18 months.
Andy Sedino, owner of Meat U Anywhere, said getting the sewer connections allowed him to move forward with closing on the property. “We personally attended the MUD meeting where we received approval and personally shook hands and shared our gratitude,” Sedino said. “As an operator you want to be in a community that wants you.” Kendra Shier, vice president of operations for Bread Winners Cafe, said it was not as far along as Meat U Anywhere. “We were still in drawings with the architect,” Shier said. “The delay had no impact on our timeline whatsoever.”
Bread Winners is scheduled to open in October 2016. Officials with the utility district and Trophy Club had been at odds over the sewer plant since May when the town required the district to go through detailed permitting and planning to update the aging treatment center, on the far northeast edge of Trophy Club. The district, which owns the treatment center, had construction crews working on the site when the town halted the work.
Town officials said the treatment center is in an environmentally sensitive area bordering Army Corps of Engineers land, so the expansion needs to be permitted properly.The district argued that the treatment center was at capacity and couldn’t accommodate additional connections, especially in the winter when the microbiological breakdown of waste slows down. The expansion will add a more efficient filtering process to the treatment center that could handle more waste. The district said the town delayed that project, creating a potential health and environmental risk.
The district board decided August not to approve additional water and sewer connections until the expansion of the sewer plant was approved. That put the two new restaurants, the first Trophy Club has attracted in a decade, in limbo.