Dive Brief:
- Buc-ee’s appears to be in the early stages of building its first convenience store in Oklahoma, according to documents filed with the Oklahoma City government.
- CSMS Management, an entity associated with Buc-ee’s, is seeking a project agreement with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation for road improvements around the intersection of Interstate 40 and North Cimarron Road in Yukon, Oklahoma, about 18 miles west of Oklahoma City, according to the documents.
- If the site works its way through permitting and approval, Oklahoma would join a long list of states the super-sized retailer has opened in or is looking to enter outside of Texas, its home state.
Dive Insight:
Buc-ee’s project agreement with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and Oklahoma City outlines the state’s department of transportation requesting approval for improvements to the Interstate 40 and Cimarron Road interchange bridge along with approaches and ramps.
“Pending approvals from the City of Oklahoma City and Buc-ee’s, ODOT could tentatively begin construction on roadway improvements as early as 2028,” a spokesperson from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation said in a statement. “Preliminary concepts include a five-lane facility and protected turnarounds, which provide dedicated lanes for U-turns without traveling through a signalized intersection. The final design has not yet been determined and will require additional study and coordination.”
CSMS will provide professional engineering services for the development of plans, specifications and estimates for the work, which will need to be reviewed and accepted by the city, the DOT and the Federal Highway Administration, according to the documents. Costs will be split among the entities, the DOT spokesperson noted.
The project agreement is on the agenda for the Oklahoma City Council’s meeting Tuesday.
Buc-ee’s has been growing rapidly outside of Texas over the past five years. States like Arizona, Virginia and Ohio have opened their first Buc-ee’s in the last year and a half, and the company is also working on adding its supersized stores in Indiana and Utah, among others.
The retailer has also run into a few roadblocks recently. For instance, a request to change land use designation for a site in Urbandale, Iowa was recently voted down.
