MARTINSVILLE — Martinsville residents who’ve been missing the old Little Caesars off Grand Valley Boulevard will rejoice: Hot ‘n’ ready pizzas will be back in town this spring, as Diya Holdings plans to build a new Little Caesars franchise next to the upcoming Jimmy John’s and Dunkin’ locations on Bills BoulevardÂ
Vick Patel, the director of acquisitions and real estate development with Diya Holdings, told The Correspondent on Tuesday that the idea to bring a Little Caesars to Martinsville stemmed from the fact that the pizza chain was not currently available in the market, and that there was room adjacent to the Jimmy John’s location coming to 30 Bills Blvd.Â
Diya initially received city approval to bring the chains to Martinsville last July. The locations for Dunkin’ and Jimmy John’s, on 20 and 30 Bills Blvd., respectively, once housed the old Pizza Hut and Los Tres Caminos restaurants.Â
The old restaurant buildings had to be demolished because they did not satisfy new regulations related to flooding. Diya had wanted to use the old buildings, but the area is in a designated flood zone, and so the new buildings had to be elevated by up to 4 feet in order to meet the regulatory requirements.Â
But the new restaurants will share an issue that plagued the old joints: access. Going to Dunkin’ or Little Caesars from South Ohio Street is impossible, as the Indiana Department of Transportation nixed the idea of allowing traffic so close to the freeway’s on-ramp. Patel previously told The Correspondent that Diya attempted to persuade INDOT to open a path to Ohio Street, but they would not allow it.Â
The total cost to demolish the previous restaurants and construct three new ones is $6-7 million, said Patel this week.Â
Patel said he plans for all three restaurants to open simultaneously sometime in mid-May, a prospect that would only be prevented if equipment is delayed for one or more of the restaurants. But this May, if all goes according to plan, folks in Martinsville can plan a trip to Dunkin’ for breakfast, grab a sandwich at Jimmy John’s for lunch and bring home a hot ‘n’ ready pizza to share with the family at dinner time.Â
