A legal battle is brewing in Amherstburg.
Local developer Joe Mikhail is taking the town along with Sobeys to court after town council deferred amending a development agreement on Monday for a proposed Wendy's Restaurant with a drive-thru on Sandwich Street South.
Mikhail says the restaurant was slated to be located next to Sobeys, but the grocery store chain is appealing the project with the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.
He says the grocery store is located on his property and is one of his tenants.
Mikhail says Wendy's can only open a store at a certain time and the delay means the fast-food chain will walk and the project is dead.
"If I don't get it open to start construction by September, they would have to wait a whole year to start again so they will have to wait until next September, they won't do that, they'll just walk," says Mikhail. "They'll go to LaSalle."
He says there is no clause in Sobeys contract that states Mikhail Holdings can't build on its property.
"It's my building, my land, my tenant," says Mikhail. "The tenant is in breach of their obligations to me now by what they have done."
The proposed Wendy's restaurant would be next door to the Sobeys in Amherstburg, August 13, 2018 (Photo by AM800's Rob Hindi)
He says it means 50 people will not be working at Wendy's.
Town council received a letter from Sobeys regarding the appeal an hour before the council meeting started.
He says the project already went through a number of stages and was approved at a public meeting, at planning as well as site plan.
Developer Joe Mikhail says the @Wendys project in #Amherstburg (@Aburg_TownHall) is dead after council defers the issue. Mikhail says the town received a letter from @sobeys an hour before tonight’s council meeting appealing the decision. #cklw pic.twitter.com/YleVhc3ZEF
— Rob Hindi (@rhindi800) August 13, 2018