SOUTHINGTON — Owners of Cava are looking to make a temporary building put up during COVID a permanent addition to the West Street restaurant.

To allow for spread out seating during the pandemic, Cava owners put up a tent in 2020. Later that year they built a 30-by-90 foot temporary building for the cold months.

That temporary building is still up and used for seating. Restaurant owners want to move it to the back of the main building and make it permanent with a basement for storage.

The restaurant has frequent elaborate decoration displays. The basement will allow more storage for those decorations.

Sev Bovino, a planner representing the restaurant, expects the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission to take up the restaurant’s request at its meeting later this month.

“It’s a temporary that was allowed during the COVID declaration by the governor,” Bovino said. “Now they have to relocate it… Also they’re going to dress up the looks of it to match the existing building.”

Right now it’s just sitting on the parking lot pavement.

Moving the temporary building will keep the space available for seating, according to Bovino. The change doesn’t affect the kitchen or add seating to the bar.

In 2017, the restaurant undertook a major expansion with the addition of rooftop dining. Seating was increased by 130, including a 20-seat bar.

During a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Tuesday, the restaurant’s request was tabled.

Commission chairman Bob Hammersley said there were questions that town engineers had for the restaurant owners’ representatives that hadn’t been answered yet. The commission plans to revisit the issue at its meeting scheduled for April 18.

Restaurant owners declined to comment since the town hadn’t yet given approval for the move.

Restaurant owners had plans to build a medical office building on land adjacent to Cava’s West Street location. Town planners narrowly approved the special permit to put two buildings on one lot in 2020.

Bovino said those plans for a medical building have been scrapped. Restaurant owners had planned for a building of about 15,000 square feet, too small to attract most medical office tenants.

“There was no demand for that building,” Bovino said. “Nowadays they look for larger buildings.”

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