CEDAR RAPIDS — The Burger King restaurant at Lindale Mall in northeast Cedar Rapids will close Jan. 3 after 30 years of business.

Perry Beaton, president of Beaton Inc., said a number of factors led to his decision to shut down the fast-food restaurant at 159 Collins Road NE.

“The lease came up and our rates went up,” Beaton said. “We wanted to do a scrape (demolish) and rebuild, but we just couldn’t do it economically on a leased piece of ground. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Beaton said the impending widening of a third of a mile of Collins Road NE by Lindale Mall to six lanes over the next two years also influenced his decision.

“We were going to lose one of our drive-through lanes and that was going to be an issue,” he said. “With that and all the construction, I felt it offered us an opportunity to reposition ourselves at another location where we will own the land.”

Beaton said all of the restaurant’s employees will transfer to other Burger King locations. He said a search has begun for a replacement site on the northeast side.

“It will require about 120 days for actual construction of a new restaurant, but we also will need time for the usual due diligence and other things,” Beaton said. “We will be without that location for about a year.”

The $15.4 million Collins Road improvement project will raise the heavily-traveled roadway up to 13 feet. At the same time, a section of Lindale Drive NE will drop 6 feet to extend under the elevated Collins Road — giving motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists new access from the north side of the highway to Lindale Mall on the south side.

Construction should begin in April with utility work along the route. Part of the bridge to carry the elevated Collins Road NE will be built in 2016 as will improvements to the entrances of Lindale Mall and Collins Crossing.