The familiar silver chrome façade at the former location of The Diner on College Avenue will soon be a thing of the past.
Eat’n Park Hospitality Group recently submitted a land development plan to State College Borough for the building at 126 W. College Ave., where, the company announced in May, it plans to open a Hello Bistro brand restaurant.
The Diner closed in April after operating under various names for nearly 80 years. Soon after, Homestead, Pa.-based Eat’n Park leased the space for what will be its ninth Hello Bistro, a chain created in 2012, offering a selection of salads, burgers, sandwiches and soups.
While the building will be fully renovated, the existing footprint will not change. Modifications to the height of the building’s front third necessitated the submission of a land development plan.
At a State College Planning Commission meeting on Dec. 5, Andy Dunmire, Eat’n Park vice president of design and construction, explained that the original Diner building was prefabricated and placed on the foundation, then the remainder of the building and roof were constructed over it.
An evaluation to determine how to lower the front entrance to provide street-level ADA accessibility found that the original structure was in poor condition. Meanwhile, raising the height of the front third of the building to just over 17 feet will be consistent with the rear building height and allow rainwater to drain from the front to the rear alley. Currently rainwater at the front of the building drains through a small opening into the alley between the restaurant and The State Theatre.
‘Our proposal is to essentially remove the first one-third of the building, go down to the existing foundation and build up from there in the same location,’ Dunmire said.
The new façade will be cedar-colored Nichiha fiber cement panels with a vintage wood texture, along with red and gray finishes. The new, accessible entrance will open into the building, not out onto the sidewalk.
Some planning commission members said they would have liked Hello Bistro to incorporate distinctive elements of the existing Diner façade.
‘It’s a token of an era, which on a main street like ours is kind of an important thing,’ said commission Vice-Chair Anita Genger. ‘I realize you have challenges but if you could do something with the façade to make it more diner-looking that would be popular with the locals and an asset to the main street if that could in some way be done.’
Jon Eich said the Diner façade is ‘iconic’ and the proposed replacement does not differentiate it from other buildings.
‘I’m glad you’re making the improvements behind the façade and I’m glad to see this business coming into town, but I think you’re making a mistake,’ Eich said. ‘You have to realize this is a tourist community with people that have roots here that go back to when they were in school. I think if you did something to maintain the aluminum portion of the façade, even just build something over it to meet the other portions of your plan it would help increase traffic to your business.’
Scott Dutt, however, said it did not appear there was that much affinity among the community for The Diner.
‘If people really cared about the Diner, they would have supported it while it was here,’ he said.
Charles Dumas added that while older Penn State alumni had a connection to The Diner, it did not seem to be much of an attraction for newer generations of students.
‘I agree if it had been that supported it would still be The Diner,’ Dumas said.
Dunmire said that Eat’n Park officials did discuss whether they should maintain the façade in some way, adding that the company employs many Penn State graduates and that its chairman is James Broadhurst, an alumnus and longtime Penn State trustee.
The chrome façade also was not a part of the original diner and was a ‘more recent variation,’ Dunmire said. Hello Bistro’s menu and atmosphere also are not what one would expect from a chrome-façade diner, he said.
‘It has a different kind of energy and a different kind of feel than a chrome diner,’ he said. ‘Because of that menu change we wanted to pull away from that so the student population wouldn’t necessarily associate us with a chrome diner.’
According to the development plan, the restaurant will have seating for 89 people. A spokesperson previously said Hello Bistro will employ 40 to 50 people. An opening date has not yet been announced.
“We believe we will have a sustained and involved presence in State College,” Patrick Auth, director of corporate real estate for Eat’n Park, said at the planning commission meeting.
Planning commission voted 5-1 to forward the plan to State College Borough Council, which will decide on approval. Anne Messner, senior planner, said that the Design Review Board previously offered comments similar to planning commission’s and that both will be included in her comment letter to council.
Hello Bistro won’t be the only new business on the 100 block of West College Avenue. Snap Custom Pizza opened in the former Herwig’s Austrian Bistro in September. Next door to Hello Bistro, Pittsburgh-based BRGR plans to open a restaurant in the bank building at 122 W. College Ave., last occupied by Citizens Bank.
