New Starbucks in Newtown will offer something rare: drive-through service

Starbucks will be the anchor tenant in an under-construction building in Newtown provisionally named for its address, 75 Church Hill Road. But the bigger news may be its drive-through window.

Starbucks will be the first nonbank and nondrugstore to be allowed to offer drive-through service since the town”™s original zoning regulations went into effect in 1958. Those regulations are believed to have played a part in Panera closing its Newtown store in 2016 and to have prevented fast-food purveyors like McDonald”™s and Wendy”™s from opening there.

The one food-related exception to the regulations until now has been Botsford Drive-In at 282 South Main St., whose drive-through window existed before the ordinance went into effect.

It was not immediately clear how much of 75 Church Hill”™s 12,170 square feet Starbucks will occupy. Individual spaces from 1,200 to 5,000 square feet are expected to be offered to up to four additional tenants.

The 3.1-acre site sits near Exit 10 of I-84, where a relatively new Citgo gas station resides nearby at 67 Church Hill. The long-established Blue Colony Diner and a Mobil station are located across the street.