The New China Palace on Melton Lake Drive has been granted a three-month lease extension, and the restaurant will be open on the city’s waterfront through May. The restaurant plans to re-open on Central Avenue by July.
The New China Palace restaurant will be open on the Oak Ridge waterfront through May, and the new owner plans to open in a new place on Central Avenue by July.
In a letter last June, Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson told the restaurant’s former owners Chung-Nan Chou and Fu-Li Chou that the city would not renew the lease when it expired in February.
But the new owner Cheng Ping Ren said the city gave the restaurant a three-month lease extension on the waterfront site on Melton Lake Drive. It expires May 31.
Ren, who managed the New China Palace for two years before he became owner, plans to move the restaurant into the former site of the Village Restaurant on Central Avenue early this summer. He said he has a five-year lease with property owner Tony Cappiello.
Ren said the new restaurant will still be about 3,500 square feet, and it will have a similar look, style, and menu as the current location.
Ren was at a Monday meeting of the Oak Ridge Beer Permit Board, which approved a permit subject to the new restaurant meeting codes and obtaining a certificate of occupancy and business license.
The city has developed a master plan for the waterfront area that recommends the New China Palace restaurant site at Melton Lake Park be remodeled as a bathhouse facility. The site is owned by the city, and it would be used to support the growing number of rowing and public activities, Watson has said.
A previous plan to replace the New China Palace with a casual diner stirred a public uproar, and it was put on hold. That proposal had been included in a waterfront plan approved by Oak Ridge City Council in December 2009. The plan calls for improvements on riverfront property from Elza Gate Park to Rivers Run Boulevard.
In February 2011, the Oak Ridge City Council approved a two-year lease with the New China Palace that give the city time to review its plans.
Myra Mansfield says
I’m so glad to hear that the restaurant will stay in Oak Ridge. I hope it turns out to be an even better location for them.
John Huotari says
They will be close to Jackson Plaza, the hospital, etc.
Jason Allison says
Most definitely good news. I’m still wondering why the current rowing building is insufficiently sized though. I guess it all played out for the good for NCP.
John Huotari says
I’d have to check my old stories, but I think the rowers hope to add bathrooms and changing rooms, among other things.
Jason Allison says
You’re right on that but I guess it’s all a moot point now. I’m glad the NCP will be moving on.