Once slated to be open at this point in time, the new QuikTrip store in Platte City will likely be completed in the early part of 2018.
The Platte City Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved the final building plan for the project during a Tuesday, April 4 meeting. Originally, QuikTrip was expected to seek approval this past January, but officials pushed the date back to this month.
Mike Talcott, real estate project manager for QuikTrip, said construction should start in late summer or early fall. The company has previously said the project should take six to eight months to complete with plans to keep the existing store open until the new one is completed.
“Everything gone, start over – brand new everything,” Talcott said.
The new QuikTrip will be one of the company’s Generation 3 stores, considered a more modern and convenient model which seeks to separate the gasoline sales from the indoor foot traffic, including side entrances that keep indoor shoppers away from the gas canopies. The stores also have an in-house kitchen with touch screen ordering and recently unveiled mobile ordering on made-to-order food and beverages in addition to expanded fountain drink options.
The current store features 11 gas pumps, seven trucker bays, 38 customer parking spots and 17 truck parking spots. The new building will allow for 82 customer parking spaces and 14 gas pumps, while reducing truck bays to six and trucker parking spots to eight.
The scales, pumps and parking for tractor trailers will be shifted from the west to the east side. Existing structures, canopies, weigh scale, pumps and underground tanks will be removed.
Talcott said that the store might close off a few trucker parking spots and diesel pumps for a brief period while installing all new below-ground gas tanks and above-ground gas pumps.
The site plan submitted to the Platte City Planning and Zoning Commission in June of 2016 revealed a design that will put the new building facing toward Highway 92, replacing the current store that faces Prairie View Road. The footprint of the QuikTrip plaza will not increase, but the new layout should help better accommodate the high volume of traffic the store receives.
The new QuikTrip will now have a Branch Street address.
The new store stems from an on-again, off-again road construction project completed in late 2016. QuikTrip committed $350,000 up front to assure the extension of Kentucky Avenue to the east to create a new public road from the previously shared drive between the convenience store and adjacent McDonald’s.
According to public documents, the biggest change from the original plan submitted this past June will be the completion of a transfer of a small triangular parcel of land on its side of the Kentucky Avenue extension. This 15,000 square foot parcel previously belonged to McDonald’s, but once acquired, QuikTrip plans to maintain the space and use it for additional parking and a future monument sign.
The outdoor landscape of the store will also receive upgrades.
The plans call for outdoor tables with chairs in addition to 13 shade trees, six ornamental trees and more than 650 shrubs. The concept also calls for sidewalks along the extended portion of Kentucky Avenue to connect with new proposed sidewalks that will run along Prairie View Road.
The modernized building helps Platte City anchor one of its biggest retail locations in place. Retaining key businesses has remained a focus of economic development efforts in the city during recent years.
The Platte City QuikTrip is commonly known as the company’s busiest in the Kansas City metro area, but traffic congestion along Prairie View Road might have prevented customers from accessing QuikTrip and the neighboring McDonald’s. All car traffic generally flows through the store’s two entry points on Prairie View Road, but with the new building now facing west instead of east, the easier access point for general car traffic could be from the new intersection at Kentucky and Highway 92.
The new right-hand merge lane onto and off of Kentucky Avenue at Highway 92 allows drivers to turn without coming to the signalized portion of the intersection.
Tractor trailers will likely continue to access the facilities from the northern edge but now can exit through the Kentucky Avenue intersection, allowing more space to orient before merging back onto Interstate 29.
The city said during Monday’s commission meeting that QuikTrip will reimburse the city for any costs associated with adding a left-hand turn lane on the newly acquired portion of Kentucky Avenue that used to be the shared business drive. This will also allow for a better separation of trucker and regular traffic.