Chick-fil-A is coming to Cameron Village on Groundhog day 2012 after 25 years of trying—and it will be in a two-story building.

John Pharr , senior vice president of Regency, Cameron Village’s operator, said Chick-fil-A is preparing to grow into heavy urban centers and selected Raleigh over its own hometown, Atlanta, for its test store. Featuring two drive-thrus , an elevator and second-floor outdoor seating, the building, which will be the first-ever two-story restaurant for the food chain, will be a radical change for Chick-fil-A , according to Pharr .

The current location has been in the works for five to six years, according to Pharr .

“It’s complicated,” Pharr said. “Whenever you have a company that’s doing something that they’ve never done before, it takes exponentially longer because everything has to be re-invented.”

Pharr said Cameron Village made an offer too good for Chick-fil-A to refuse.

“They felt that Cameron has had such a long and storied history in the retail world that…certainly when this block was offered to them, it was in their terms kind of a no-brainer,” Pharr said. “This is absolutely where they wanted to do the first concept store.”

Chick-fil-A was given the plot due to their professionalism and willingness to work with the shopping center’s demands.

“We would never have offered the location that they are doing to [any other fast food restaurant].”

Seating 200 people on the inside alone, Pharr said the store is poised to become a destination.

“They will do probably triple in revenue what a normal Chick-fil-A does and they are prepared to accommodate that demand,” Pharr said.

Pharr said the company’s work on the project was second to none.

“I’ve been in the real estate business for 30 years, and I have never seen one entity go to this level of development due diligence,” Pharr said. “McDonald’s would never do this.”

Students eating Chick-fil-A at the Atrium Monday weren’t sure if they would make it to Cameron Village.

Danny Ocean, a junior in political science and business entrepreneurship, said he eats Chick-fil-A most days.

“I probably won’t go over [to Cameron Village] because I live on Vanderbilt,” Ocean said.

Chelsea Brown and Katherine Atkinson, a freshman in design studies and an freshman in middle school math education, respectively, said they and their friends eat Chick-fil-A on campus at least four times a week.

“We will probably go over and check it out,” Brown said.

They said transportation and money would be issues because they didn’t have cars and Cameron Village wouldn’t take meal plans.

“We might go there once a week instead of four times a week,” Atkinson said. “I definitely see the potential for it becoming a hangout spot.”