HOUGHTON — Evangel Baptist Church is seeking to halt construction of the new KFC in Houghton.

Evangel filed suit against KFC franchise owner Glen Flewelling and contractors in Houghton County Circuit Court earlier this month.

Daniel G. Kamin Houghton, LLC, the owner of the property occupied by Tadych’s Marketplace, has a separate suit against the new KFC, which is pending in the Michigan Court of Appeals. Kamin had argued the curbing that would be built around the new KFC would violate a cross-easement agreement by impeding the “harmonious use” of the property.

They are appealing a February 2022 decision in Houghton County Circuit Court, which upheld the Planning Commission’s approval of the site plan.

Instead of the curbing, Evangel’s suit centers on the construction of the KFC building itself, which it said is prohibited by the 1993 cross-easement agreement covering the area including the Evangel and Tadych’s lots (then used by ShopKo and Ironwood Oil Co., respectively). That agreement, it said, set aside the parcels for the “parking, ingress and egress needs” of the property owners.

The suit also says the easement agreement is necessary for KFC to gain entry to its property from the road.

“It would be unreasonable to interpret the Cross-Easement Agreement to allow ingress and egress to construct a facility that the Cross-Easement Agreement prohibits the construction of,” Evangel said in its complaint.

Evangel also disagreed with statements made during Kamin’s suit. It had not entered into negotiations to buy the former ShopKo property with the knowledge it was not getting the two parcels now being used by KFC. Instead, it only found out about two weeks before the sale closed.

The two parcels had been surveyed separately in 2005, but did not legally become their own parcels until 2019, Evangel said. While the two parcels were under the ownership of a separate ShopKo entity from the main store, they were kept under the same tax bill, Evangel said.

The legal actions are not impacting construction on the restaurant, Flewelling’s attorneys said in a press release.

“Flewelling is confident that he will continue to prevail on the Tadych suit in the Court of Appeals, and on the new Church 12th Circuit Court lawsuit,” the release said.