Mike Wolanin | The Republic The old Musillami’s Drive-In off State Road 11 in Columbus, Indiana is under demolition, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025.
City officials agreed to rezone the location of a former drive-in so an adjacent business can use the lot for outdoor storage.
Columbus City Council members agreed to rezone the 1.23 acre former site of Musillami’s Drive-In at 855 Jonesville Road in Columbus Township so Indiana Precast can use it for outdoor storage of precast concrete products.
The granted request was to rezone the site from Commercial: Community (CC) to match the Industrial: Heavy (I3) zoning designation of Indiana Precast at 895 Jonesville Road, just adjacent to the subject property.
The rezoning was approved on first reading 8-0. Ordinances must be passed twice to be finalized. Councilor Jerone Wood, D-District 3, was absent.
Musillami’s —known for their pizza burgers— had gone out of business in 2021 after 64 years, and the structure was demolished in February.
Indiana Precast specializes in drainage solutions. Many of their concrete products, which include risers, inverts, cones, wing walls and box culverts, could be seen on land that almost surrounded the restaurant before it was demolished. The property was bought by Indiana Precast for $250,000 in early January, property records state.
The Columbus Plan Commission during their meeting on May 14 voted 10-0 to forward a favorable recommendation to city council members on the matter.
The subject site is surrounded by a mix of commercial, industrial and some agriculture zoning, according to a report by planning department staff.
In addition, the property is located in the Wellfield Protection Overlay District, which Planning Director Jeff Bergman said is an overlay that is used to prevent land uses and certain development practices from degrading the water quality.
The district “provides a level of scrutiny and protection for the city’s drinking water wells,” Bergman told council members. “This provides, at a later point in the process, city utilities the ability to weigh in on Indiana Precast’s plans for the property and make sure that nothing is going to occur there that would be a threat to our drinking water supply.”
The zoning ordinance requires that Indiana Precast will have to follow through on certain fencing and landscaping provisions because the storage area is next to Jonesville Road, according to the staff report.
“There was discussion at plan commission about Indiana Precast also selling pizza burgers, but that didn’t seem to get any traction,” Bergman joked.
The next step, Bergman said, is for Indiana Precast to complete an administrative subdivision to combine the two properties. After that, the business will need to submit a zoning compliance certificate application to the planning department for review of the site plan for the expansion.
