McDonald’s Near Pending Nassau Hub To Rebuild

UNIONDALE, NY – The McDonald’s restaurant at the busy intersection of Hempstead Turnpike and Uniondale Avenue will face the proverbial wrecking ball so that the multinational fast food corporation can build a new drive-thru-centric facility.

McDonald’s Corporation submitted an application to the Town of Hempstead Board of Zoning Appeals to demolish the existing restaurant, at 1110 Hempstead Tpke., and build a new facility geared toward serving more customers. The proposal was approved following the Feb. 16 zoning board hearing.

“The Board of Zoning Appeals granted approval for the construction with conditions, although our counsel is still drafting the decision and it is expected to be released late this week or early next week,” Matthew Capp, a Town spokesman, told Patch.

The existing 3373-square-foot, 92-seat restaurant will be replaced by a 56-seat, 3949 square-foot modern building with side-by-side drive-thrus.While the existing one-window drive thru holds five vehicles before impacting Uniondale Avenue, the reconfigured double drive thru will allow for 14 vehicles.

“The purpose of the application was to make room for the new side-by-side drive thrus,” said Matthew Ingber, an attorney from the Melville-based Brown Altman & DiLeo that represented McDonald’s Corporation at the zoning board hearing. “With a new business model that is more drive-thru focused, they can have less seats in the restaurant, so long as the drive-thru can handle more cars.”

Ingber said that the McDonald’s site operator knocked on several doors of neighboring residents to inform them of the reconstruction plans.

Demolition of the existing restaurant is expected in August, and the new restaurant is tentatively set to open by the end of 2022, Ingber said.

Once the site of a Roy Rogers restaurant, the heavily trafficked McDonald’s is located across the street from Hofstra University, Memorial Sloan Kettering Nassau’s outpatient facility, and the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The arena will be the central building of the pending redevelopment project dubbed the Nassau Hub. With construction on the 77-acre site expected to break ground this year, the Hub will feature housing, experiential retail and a Northwell Health research and development center.