Gas Station Inches Toward Relocating Across Street
Chardon Planning Commission granted a use variance for Sheetz May 27, moving the gas station and convenience store one step closer to relocating across the street.
Chardon Planning Commission granted a use variance for Sheetz May 27, moving the gas station and convenience store one step closer to relocating across the street.
The Chardon Sheetz has been eyeing the vacant Rite-Aid property at 501 Water Street as a potential new site that would allow it to update its facility and expand offerings.
The former Rite-Aid property is made up of five land parcels and is zoned C3, which, according to Chardon’s zoning code, does not permit gas stations.
As a result, Sheetz applied for a use variance.
“The request this evening is to allow a gas station in the C3 traditional commercial district,” Community Development Administrator Steve Yaney explained. “Currently, gas stations aren’t permitted, with an asterisk — that condition though is that the gas station had to be in operation at the onset of the code rewrite we had about a year ago.”
As part of Sheetz’s proposed move, the current Rite-Aid building and parking lot would be razed and replaced with a new Sheetz gas station and convenience store, Yaney said, adding at that time, the current gas station would cease operation.
City staff recommended a few conditions for approval, he said.
“There is a consolidation plat for these parcels that would need to take place during the development process if this is approved tonight and they would go forward with the gas station. That would include putting on right-of-way dedication and the easements on the plat,” Yaney said.
While a plat was drafted when Rite-Aid took over the property in 1997, it was never recorded, he added.
City officials also recommended a time limit be placed on decommissioning the old Sheetz, he said.
“Part of what we’re discussing this evening is predicated on the fact that there wouldn’t be an additional gas station,” Yaney said.
Diane Calta, Sheetz’s land development counsel, provided more context about the company’s desire to move.
Sheetz does a total update of its facilities every 10-15 years, Calta said, adding the lot the current Sheetz sits on would not be conducive to those changes.
“That means the entire site is cleared, all of the tanks are taken out, the canopy is taken out and everything is completely redone,” she said. “The site across the street has become available and in looking at it, it is a much better site for a lot of different reasons.”
The proposed construction would include a 6,139-square-foot convenience store with a restaurant, a drive-through equipped with a touchpad rather than a speaker and 12 pumps across six fuel pump islands, Calta said.
This would be one less island than the current location, she noted.
The existing convenience store building would be debranded and left standing, and the gas tanks and canopy would be removed, Calta said.
It isn’t uncommon for Sheetz to rebuild across the street or down the block, site selector Owen Wolf added, noting site requirements may grow or change depending on the physical constraints of a location.
“Case in point of our existing location, we’re kind of a makeshift outparcel of a strip mall down at the current intersection,” he said. “We have been evaluating alternative options for that location for quite some time.”
The new location fits Sheetz’s parameters in terms of site-size and shape, Wolf said.
“We kind of have our hands tied at our current location,” he said. “It’s beyond its maturity for our prototype.”
The planning commission approved the use variance with the conditions that the new lot is consolidated and the old gas station decommissioned, including the removal of the tanks, canopy and gas pumps and restoration of pavement to a landscaped area within one year of the new facility opening.
