Plans have now been approved by members of the Chandler City Council for the construction of a new QuikTrip convenience store and gas station location that will be built at 2000 W. Ray Road.
The 5,300-square-foot structure will sit on a 2.5-acre site and will feature eight fuel pumps topped by a nearly 7,300-square-foot canopy.
In order to make way for the new building, a 17,000-square-foot structure that once housed a drug store will be demolished.
The new Chandler facilities are part of a wider effort on the part of the Tulsa-based QuikTrip Corporation to expand its locations primarily across the states of the Sunbelt.
Launched in 1958, the company, which is particularly known for its full-service kitchens and variety of sandwich offerings, opened its 1,000th store in metro San Antonio last spring.
Although the company struggled during its initial years of operation, its expansion efforts have always been aggressive, building forty three stores by 1967, one hundred and twenty by 1971, well over twice that amount in the early 1990s, and hitting the eight hundred mark in 2021.
QuikTrip has built a particularly strong presence in recent years in the West with more than 200 locations in Texas, 120 in Arizona, and nearly a dozen stores in Colorado.
A proposal to build the chain’s first store in New Mexico failed late last year when the City of Albuquerque denied a special request allowing for the sale of alcohol at the site.
QuikTrip locations generally range in size from 4,100 square feet to 5,700 square feet. The company’s Travel Center sites, however, can be as large as 8,000 square feet.
The Travel Center sites are particularly known for their extended gas station offerings, which include up to 20 pumps for cars and half a dozen diesel bays for trucks.
Just since the beginning of this year, the company has built new stores and stations in Rockford, Illinois; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Denver, Colorado.
By Garry Boulard
