Valle Grande Mexican Grill is considering building a new restaurant on property next to the new Dave’s Market off Alabama 22 to accommodate more customers.

Mayor Wayne Labbe said he was approached by the owner Sergio Sanchez, who said that their business has increased since Dave’s Market moved last year. Part of the reason for that is due to the availability of parking at the restaurant’s current location.

When Dave’s was there, the grill didn’t have as many customers just because there wasn’t enough parking to accommodate the customers. Now that they have access to the whole parking area, they have been seen their business soar.

Because of this, Sanchez told Labbe that he would like to build a new restaurant to accommodate even more customers. Currently, they have space for about 120 customers, but the new plans that are being drawn up could seat up to 240 or 250 people.

“He’s wanting to know if we can help him out,” Labbe said during a council meeting on June 2. “He tells me that their business (for the last quarter) has gone up about 25%. The total tax for that quarter that we received (from the restaurant) is around $10,500. That would be about $3,500 per quarter.”

If approved, the city would likely pay out the tax refund quarterly.

During the construction of Dave’s Market, the city gave the supermarket the sales tax collected on one percent of sales at the business. However, the city agreed to do that for nearly 10 years while Dave’s was under construction.

This time, however, the city would only give the tax rebate on the 1% while construction is happening. Valle Grande Mexican Grill still has around 18 months left on its current lease. Labbe said if they were planning to move at the end of that contract, they would likely need to begin construction pretty soon.

Several council members agreed with doing the tax rebate during the construction, but they didn’t want to have a similar situation where the rebate would be paid indefinitely.

“If you do it for one, you have to do it for everybody,” said Councilwoman Tammy Thoha.

“But we’ve already done it for one,” Labbe said.

“I know that, but where do we stop it at?” Troha said. “If construction goes for one year, I am not in favor of doing sales tax before he builds it.”

Councilwoman Sara Day questioned whether they would approve it before had a firm construction date.

“He could approach us a month before it’s to break ground,” Day said. “You know, not go ahead and put any contracts in place right now.”

Labbe said the construction of their new building could range anywhere from $700,000 to $1 million based on construction costs. Maplesville and Clanton also worked with Valle Grande Mexican Grill on their two locations, giving him some incentives, but they were renovating existing spaces.

In Valley Grande, they will be building a new building, so the incentives will be different.

“He can draw it up like he wants it,” Labbe said. “So, he’s excited about it.”