Cat cafe on planning agenda

Plans for a cat café downtown — half of the space for adoptable cats, the other half a café — will be considered by Findlay City Planning Commission Thursday. Lindsay Harris, one of the people proposing the cat café at 125 E. Crawford St., said it could open in two to three years. If they get a conditional approval for the cat café in the downtown business district, Harris and her partner plan to buy the property and remodel it. "People would be able to pay a small fee to go in and hang out with the cats, just to decompress, be around adoptable cats," Harris said. "Then if they want to adopt, we'll go through the adoption process with them, make sure they are a suitable place, go forward with that process." She plans to have five to seven cats in the space at a time. City administrative staff is recommending the planning commission allow five cats at most. The café, serving coffee, tea and small bakery items, would be separate from the cat area. "Just a quiet place for people to come, sit and relax. As of right now there is not really a late-night coffee shop. So the hope is that it would be a late night option, especially for college students in town," she said. Harris and her partner, Kade, are University of Findlay alums. Separately, city planners will consider plans for a Sheetz gas station and car wash at the northeast corner of North Main Street and County Road 99. The gas station would have 12 pumps and the convenience store/restaurant would be 6,139 square feet. The convenience store would have a made-to-order section and a drive-thru. A 1,649-square-foot car wash would be located on the east side of the property.