Mount Pleasant planners approve a Raising Cane’s drive-through on Mission Street that would stay open until 3 a.m.

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — Raising Cane’s Restaurants wants to build a quick-serve restaurant with two drive-through lanes on South Mission Street and keep it open from 10 a.m. to 3 a.m., and Mount Pleasant’s planning staff recommended that the city say yes. The Planning Commission took up the request at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, at City Hall, 320 W. Broadway St., and all commissioners voted to approve it, Central Michigan Life reported.

The site, 1516 S. Mission St., is the vacant former La Senhorita restaurant, according to a staff report in the commission’s meeting packet. The plan calls for a 3,031-square-foot building with about 50 seats inside and room for about 12 more outdoors, drive-through lanes that can hold 22 vehicles, and three parking stalls for mobile-order pickup.

The company expects to hire 60 people, split into four shifts with 15 on duty at peak hours, the report says.

Drive-through restaurants outside the Central Business District need a special use permit, which requires a public hearing. Staff found the restaurant compatible with its neighbors to the north and east, a Papa John’s and a Rally’s that already have drive-throughs. Because of the late hours, the plan adds a hedge of narrow evergreens along the south property line, next to the United and Western Islands apartments.

The approval recommendation comes with conditions: a recycling container in the trash enclosure, a recorded cross-access easement between 1504 S. Mission St. and Fairfield Drive, and coordination with the city and the Michigan Department of Transportation on a shared-use path planned along the frontage. At the urging of MDOT and the city, the driveway was split into an entrance and a right-turn-only exit, the report says. The Zoning Board of Appeals has already granted the project a variance from the district’s 15-foot maximum front setback, according to the commission’s September minutes.

Also on Thursday’s agenda, Lowkey Properties, which runs an adult-use marijuana grow at 1110 N. Fancher St., asked to move from a Class C state license, which allows up to 2,000 plants, to a Class B license, which allows up to 500. In a letter to the city, the company said a wholesale tax and other changes in the cannabis market raised the cost of large-scale growing, so it moved its main cultivation to a bigger facility. It plans to use the Mount Pleasant building mainly to keep mother plants and grow clones for its other licensed sites. The change in license type requires a new special use permit.

Commissioners also got a first look at two zoning changes aimed at what planners call missing middle housing. The first would create a new “permitted limited” category, allowing accessory dwelling units, duplexes and triplexes or fourplexes in the city’s CD-3 suburban districts by right if they meet set standards, instead of through a discretionary special use permit.

The staff list also would cut the minimum size of an accessory unit from 400 square feet to 200, drop a 20-foot minimum width, let either the main house or the accessory unit be the owner-occupied one, and lower the minimum size of a duplex from 1,000 square feet to 800. Staff said the list reflects checklists commissioners filled out after an Aug. 13 work session.

The second change would loosen front-setback and attached-garage design standards for single-family homes and missing middle housing so new houses better fit their blocks, according to the agenda. Both housing items were listed for discussion; staff asked commissioners whether to proceed with a formal introduction.

The meeting also streamed on the city’s YouTube channel and Spectrum channel 188.

Updated Oct. 13, 2026: The Planning Commission approved Raising Cane’s special use permit on Thursday, Oct. 8, with every commissioner voting yes, Central Michigan Life reported. The paper said the restaurant is expected to open in 2027, and the one resident who spoke asked that the plan account for cyclists on Mission Street. This story was written before the meeting; its headline and meeting language have been changed to the past tense, and the comment-email line was removed because the hearing has closed.

Sources:
Central Michigan Life, Ella Miller, “Raising Cane’s on pace to open in 2027,” Oct. 9, 2026, https://www.cm-life.com/article/2026/10/d-canesvote-news-100926
City of Mt. Pleasant, “Topics to Watch at the Mt. Pleasant Planning Commission Meeting – October 8, 2026”, https://www.mt-pleasant.org/news_detail_T10_R344.php
City of Mt. Pleasant Planning Commission, Oct. 8, 2026 meeting packet (staff reports on PSUP-SPR-26-002, PSUP-26-003, TC-26-03 and TC-26-04; Sept. minutes), https://www.mt-pleasant.org/Planning_Community%20Development/Meeting%20Docs/Packet%2010-8_rev.pdf
Photo: Spatms, “Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, Cane's 1 - The Mothership, Original Cane's Restaurant Exterior and Drive-thru,” Dec. 2, 2025, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), cropped and color-corrected; derivative under the same ShareAlike license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raising_Cane's_Chicken_Fingers,_Cane's_1_-_The_Mothership,_Original_Cane's_Restaurant_Exterior_and_Drive-thru.jpg

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