Griffin Beverage Company in St. Ignace has been denied a variance to expand its warehouse on Reagon Street. The company’s plan did not receive the required two-thirds vote from the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) for a variance at a ZBA meeting Wednesday, September 7. The company, in an industrial zone, had asked to reduce a required west side setback from 25 feet to 10 feet and a north side setback from 50 feet to 10 feet.

The seven-member board voted 4-3 to approve the variance, however, five votes were needed to meet the two-thirds variance requirement, thus the request was denied.

Griffin Beverage was asking for a building permit to construct a 107-foot by 75-foot addition to the building. Its west side setback, which abuts The St. Ignace News building, is required between structures in an industrial zone and the 50-foot setback on its north side is required because it abuts a residential area, in this case, Gary Nitz’s property, formerly the home of Ray and Marilyn Wilkins.

Mike Kamyszek, Griffin Beverage’s warehouse manager, said the company purchased a soft drink distribution route and added more products to its business and needs more space to store it.

ZBA members Dean Baker, Tom Hamel, and Ken Hardy voted against the request.

Nearby property owners said they had no objection to the requested variance. Mr. Nitz asked the company to provide a tree barrier to hide the steel facade planned for the warehouse extension.

At one point, the board considered asking the Planning Commission to rezone the street from Industrial to Commercial, which would allow owner Bob Griffin to build 15 feet back from the residential lot and abut the St. Ignace News property line on the west.

Mr. Baker said he was still concerned with the short setback and said the city needed to enforce its zoning or change it so that variances are not required.

“We’ve been through this with others who were asking for smaller distances than that and we’ve denied them,” Mr. Baker said. “I’d be willing to go along with this with a barrier in place and if you moved the wall in five feet,” which would conform to the 15-foot setback requirement of a commercial lot.

But Mr. Griffin said, even if the lot were rezoned commercial, he would still ask for a 10-foot setback from the residential lot, because without it, he would lose more than 500 square feet of his addition, which would make the cost for such a project undesirable.

Mr. Kamyszek said the business has an alternative site it can use, outside the city limits, however, building an addition to the existing warehouse would be less expensive. For the time being, he said, the company will not pursue the rezoning option.

“For now,” he said, “we’re going to stay the way we are now.”

The zoning board is not sure why the property on Reagon Street is zoned Industrial, but Planning Commission Chairman Art Underwood, who attending the meeting, said he believes it may date to the old railroad spur that was routed from the north switching yard (now the site of Little Bear East Arena) to the Mill Slip.