This vacant lot at the southeast corner of Campbell and Ash streets in Baker City is the proposed site for a Taco Bell restaurant.

A Taco Bell restaurant is coming to Baker City.

The city planning commission voted unanimously on Wednesday, June 21 to approve an application for a restaurant and drive-thru at Campbell and Ash streets.

Pacific Bells, LLC of Vancouver, Washington, is the applicant. The site is a half-acre vacant lot on the south side of Campbell Street, just west of Coffee Corral.

According to the application, the Taco Bell would have 40 seats and would be open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m., from 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Sundays. The restaurant would cover 2,240 square feet. The restaurant would have three work shifts, with a maximum of 12 employees per shift, according to the application.

Kari Keller, a representative of Pacific Bells, LLC, said the company hopes to start construction in August, following the appeal period on the commission’s decision.

“If we start in August, we should be open, I would say, end of November, early December, obviously pending any weather delays. We will be open no later than December 26,” Keller said. “We’re excited to get this one underway and we’re moving as quickly as we can.”

She said the Campbell Street property is the third or fourth site in Baker City the company has considered.

“We were initially looking at a few other locations but this one. … the stars kind of aligned,” she said.

Keller said the company will start searching for employees once the construction is in progress.

This is the second application for a Taco Bell franchise in Baker City.

In 2020 a Washington company applied for a site design review for a different property, a 0.91-acre parcel on the north side of Campbell Street near Albertsons store.

That application was filed July 11, 2020, but it was withdrawn later that summer at the applicant’s request, according to the Baker City/County Planning Department.

The applicant wrote in a letter to the department that “we are still working on the access issue and our project is therefore not ready for formal approval.”

Keller said that although the 2020 application predated her employment with Pacific Bells, LLC, she believes the company was also involved in that application.