The new QuikTrip store in Platte City will provide customers with a new perspective.
A site plan submitted to the Platte City Planning and Zoning Commission 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 commission voted 6-0 in favor of the site plan. Construction could start in September with an expected six to eight months needed to complete the project. The new QuikTrip will now have a Branch Street address.
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.
“This is what (the CEO) wants people to associate with QuikTrip — not the old store,” said Mike Talcott, real estate project manager for QuikTrip during the Tuesday, June 7 planning and zoning commission meeting. “It costs a lot of money, but it’s worth it because we plan on being here for at least another 30 years.
“We want the facility to bear the time and function very well.”
A currently in progress project to extend Kentucky Avenue helped prompt QuikTrip to make good on its promise to build a new store.
The Platte City location 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. With a new access point at Kentucky Avenue, City of Platte City officials believe traffic patterns will improve, although the adjustment could take time.
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. There will be a right-hand merge lane onto and off of Kentucky Avenue at Highway 92 that will allow drivers to turn without coming to the signalized portion of the intersection.
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 to make way for all new facilities.
Tractor trailers will likely continue to access the facilities from the northern edge but will now be able to exit through the Kentucky Avenue intersection, allowing more space to orient before merging back onto Interstate 29.
“It gives everybody a ton of options, which is what you really need,” Platte City city administrator DJ Gehrt said. “The old traffic patterns still work. The patterns that are there now, you can still do. If you don’t want to change anything about the way you’re doing it, you can still do that.
“There’s no way to make it worse because it’s already worse.”
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-store kitchen with touch screen ordering on made-to-order food and beverages in addition to expanded fountain drink options.
The outdoor landscape 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.
There will be a total of 14 regular gas pumps and seven diesel gas pumps.
The only minor issues at this point are easement and property right agreements that still must be worked out. There were no concerns about those not getting done.
“For us to have the opportunity to reinvent the site and face 92, it’s just really exciting because that store’s been a great facility,” Talcott said. “We love it. I hope you guys all go there, but it just doesn’t look like this,” he said pointing at the conceptual designs.
The update comes after a long anticipated road project that faced numerous obstacles.
Funding finally received final approval from the Platte City Board of Aldermen at a March, 2016 meeting after bids came in well over engineer estimates. The city upped its obligation in an effort to avoid losing MoDOT’s commitment and to complete a project viewed as essential for economic development in Platte City.
In addition to turning the private drive between QuikTrip and McDonald’s into a city road, the project aims to reconstruct the Highway 92 intersection with Kentucky Avenue into a four-way controlled signal while also reducing a troublesome superelevation along parts of Highway 92. That work is currently underway as part of a scheduled 180-day road project that will result in lane reductions and closure of intersections through November of this year.
On the city’s comprehensive plan, Kentucky Avenue is viewed as a four-lane divided arterial roadway connecting Fourth Street all the way to Prairie View Road. Work already began in February to extend the roadway from its opposite terminus at Bent Oak Court to service Compass Elementary, Platte County’s R-3’s currently under-construction building.
“This is pretty exciting,” Talcott said. “To see the ground moving, it’s great out there."
Contributed graphic
This illustration shows an example of a QuikTrip Generation 3 store. The company plans to build a new store in Platte City with construction slated to begin soon. The old building and pumps will be razed after completion of the new store.