A Dairy Queen restaurant is planned in Wildwood on the southwest corner of County Road 216 and U.S. 301, diagonally across from the Circle K gas station.
Wildwood commissioners Monday night approved annexation of the roughly four-acre property. CR 216 is an extension of County Road 472, also known as Rainey Trail.
A site plan must be submitted and approved before construction begins.
The nearest existing Dairy Queen is south of County Road 44, just east of Interstate 75. Several other stores are located in Central Florida.
The first Dairy Queen opened in 1940 in Joliet, Illinois, serving a soft-serve ice cream developed two years earlier. Now owned by Berkshire Hathaway, there are more than 6,500 Dairy Queen stores in 27 countries. The international corporate headquarters is in Edina, Minn.
Monday’s commission meeting was held according to social distancing guidelines with commissioners in separate locations and accessible to the public through the GoToMeeting internet program.
Commissioners said they look forward soon to restoring normal meeting procedures.
“None of us are experts at reopening the city after a pandemic,” said Commissioner Joe Elliott. “This has been a unique and challenging time.”
Mayor Ed Wolf said he hopes commissioners can meet soon in the same room where they can “look at each other and have a fair sense of normality.”
