According to internal communications obtained by Port City Daily, Dave & Buster’s is in the planning stages for a new establishment at 953 Town Center Drive within Mayfaire Town Center. Discussions have been ongoing since last summer regarding the development of a vacant lot near Pure Barre, Fuel Fitness, the IMAX parking lot, and the former Fox and Hound space.
Dave & Buster’s
The City of Wilmington Planning Department is currently reviewing the proposed development, as confirmed by Scott James, the Wilmington Area Urban Metropolitan Planning Organization transportation planning engineer.
The obtained emails suggest that Dave & Buster’s plans to include a 5,000 square-foot bar, a 6,500-square-foot restaurant, and a 12,500 square-foot arcade in the new facility.
The Wilmington Metropolitan Planning Organization (WMPO), city staff, and Kimley Horn, the engineering planning and design consultants for the project, have been discussing potential traffic impacts on Mayfaire. If the development results in over 100 additional trips during peak AM or PM hours, a formal traffic impact analysis would be required.
Kimley-Horn, in an email to city staff, reported 135 weekly PM peak hour trips, with 85 entering and 51 exiting, and a daily total of 1,244 trips. The firm believes these trips will not significantly impact the surrounding roadway network, although they did not account for pass-by traffic.
Senior planning member Pat O’Mahoney has requested Kimley-Horn to submit a TIA waiver request letter alongside its technical review committee submission.
Neither Dave & Buster’s nor Mayfaire has responded to inquiries from Port City Daily.
Currently operating around 200 stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada, Dave & Buster’s aims to remodel approximately 45 stores and open 12 new outlets this year. If plans proceed in Wilmington, the entertainment complex would be the largest of its kind in the area.
The bar and arcade trend is not new to Wilmington, with Rally Point opening in downtown Wilmington last fall, and another locally owned establishment planned for South 15th Street in the Cargo District by summer 2024. The last large-scale complex in the area was Alleigh’s, which closed in 2008 and is now a church.
