RaceTrac applied to the city of Beavercreek to develop a 24/7 “extended diesel offering gas station,” according to the application, including a 6,000 square-foot convenience store, eight car refueling stations, five diesel refueling stations, and parking for both cars and trucks. The 16.7-acre property is part of a larger 61.5-acre lot at the southwest corner of U.S. 35 and Factory Road.
The commission approved the rezoning on the condition that it won’t “be utilized as a ‘truck stop’ (in part or in whole), as that term is defined in the Beavercreek Zoning Code,” documents show. Planning commission’s resolution also prohibits “the fueling or parking of truck tractors, tractor trailers, semi-trailers, or similar heavy commercial vehicles.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if RaceTrac would continue to move forward on the project given the limitations imposed.
The proposal has been in the zoning phase, and specific site plans would still have to be approved by the planning commission later, and then approved by city council in order to start construction.
Much of the debate Wednesday evening centered on whether or not the RaceTrac facility is a truck stop.
“Typically a stage one application is not accompanied by this level of detail, but it was provided for transparency. It was not provided to preclude other permissible uses,” said Dinsmore and Shohl attorney Richard Tranter, representing RaceTrac.
“The fact that we have dispensaries for truck fueling, the fact that trucks may occur and come onto our site for the restaurant purposes or dispensary purposes, is different than (Beavercreek’s) definition of a truck stop,” Tranter said.
Tranter cited the definition of a truck stop as a facility that “primarily” serves as fueling or parking for truck vehicles, adding that only 10 trucks are expected to pass through at peak hours, compared with more than 200 cars.
The development would not include elements normally associated with truck stops, including showers, laundry facilities, diesel truck repair parts or diesel truck washing facilities, according to the application.
“The RaceTrac in front of you is what has occurred in the mixture of convenience stores and gas stations in the last four years,” Tranter said. “This is not an anomaly.”
The proposal is is in a rapidly developing area of town, with a 151-lot single-family-home subdivision being constructed off of Shakertown Road, just west of Factory Road and the proposed gas station. The city received 85 emails in opposition to the RaceTrac proposal, in addition to more than 25 people who spoke at the meeting opposing the facility.
“I served on city council when this came up ... we looked at every angle,” said former councilman John Broughton. “(The applicant) can call it whatever he wants. It’s a truck stop, attached to a gas station. ... I would recommend the planning commission keep it the way we studied it. Keep it a gas station.”
“This is both a gas station and a truck stop,” said resident Paul Roderer, who lives near the proposed site. “It should not be that close to a neighborhood, it should not be that close to a soccer field, it should not be that close to a bike path. It should not be inside a floodplain. It should not be on an already dysfunctional stretch of roadway.”
Resident Mary Lou Hopan raised concerns about the site’s location inside a floodplain, and the resulting affects to Beavercreek’s wetlands, which “are not disposable,” she said.
“Commercial developers, who are often out of state, such as RaceTrac, look at Beavercreek’s demographics, and they envision the profits they will make,” she said. “They come into town, tear out hundreds of acres of forests, and they build yet another Mattress Factory, or as many of the other types of things, like a gas station. Beavercreek residents don’t want a duplication of these things every quarter mile.”
The city staff report on the property recommended splitting the property, with less-intense office uses for the southern nine acres, and commercial for the northern seven acres.
“That portion of the site is considered a truck stop in that the end users are different class of vehicles than the users of a vehicle service station, the design of that portion of the site is such that it is clearly designed for the use of large commercial vehicles, the preliminary parking shown on that portion of the site is sized for commercial vehicles, and the pump flow rates are vastly different between the two uses,” the report says.
RaceTrac operates over 560 convenience store, restaurant and gas station locations in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas.
Several gas station chains have made proposals to build in the Dayton area in the last few years, including Wawa, Sheetz, Casey’s and a 74,000-square-foot Buc-ee’s in Huber Heights.
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