2nd new gas station coming to I-65 junction

Circle K has reopened its BP gasoline station on Valleydale Road near Interstate 65 after a complete demolition and rebuild, and another gas station is planned right next to it.

RaceTrac has gained approval to build a 5,400-square-foot convenience store with eight gasoline dispensers (16 pumping stations) at 2137 Valleydale Road. The site is on the east side of I-65, across from the Medplex outpatient surgery center and not far from the Lowe’s home improvement store.

Circle K tore down a 1,150-square-foot convenience store that was next door, at 2157 Valleydale Road, for about 30 years and rebuilt a new one that is 5,000 square feet, said Andy Sant, Citgo’s construction manager for Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and the Florida panhandle.

The new store and gas station opened July 18.

“The old one was real old and needed some attention,” Sant said. “This is a good replacement and much better-looking store. … The other one was ugly.”

The Hoover City Council gave approval for the rebuild in October. Construction began around the beginning of the year and took two to three months longer than expected due to the large amount of rock on the site, said Mitch Combs of Winesett-Hill Construction. Construction crews did a lot of pounding to break up the rock instead of blasting, he said. The total construction cost was about $2 million, he said.

The new BP station has six gasoline dispensers (12 pumping stations) instead of the four dispensers that were there before, Combs said. The station now has both diesel fuel and gasoline without ethanol as new offerings, Sant said, and the new convenience store serves hot food, including pizza and burritos.

Circle K opened a store about the same size as this one in Homewood, at Lakeshore Parkway and Columbiana Road, about two months ago and another similar one in Gulf Shores in February, Sant said.

The new stores are part of an updating effort that started about five years ago, he said, noting that this is about the 20th update he has done in the past three years, he said.

Circle K did realize that RaceTrac was planning to build immediately next door, but Sant said he did not think that played into the decision to replace the store.

RaceTrac originally received approval to build its store in 2012, said Martin Evans, an attorney who represented the company before the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission in March and Hoover City Council in April. However, the company held off on construction.

Due to the large amount of rock on the site, RaceTrac has reconfigured the layout of the store on the lot in hopes of reducing the amount of blasting that might be necessary, Evans said. Designers shifted the store and dispensers more to the west and reduced the number of gasoline dispensers from 10 to eight, he said. They also increased the number of parking spaces to 36.

Wayne Wilder, a resident on Highgate Hill Road in Indian Springs Village, which is just south of the property, told the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission he was concerned about the gasoline station creating more traffic and light pollution.

Planning Commission Chairman Mike Wood said all lights on the RaceTrac gasoline station canopy would have to be flush or recessed to help minimize the amount of light that leaves the site.

Evans said RaceTrac would maintain a 50-foot landscape buffer on its property and noted the homes next door are hundreds of feet above the gasoline station.

Dr. Chris Davis, a physician who has an office nearby on Valleydale Road, said he was concerned about the noise that would come with construction. With the BP station, “the jack hammering has been unbelievable,” he said.

Efforts to get a construction timeline for the RaceTrac gasoline station were unsuccessful. Liz Howell, the communications manager for RaceTrac, encouraged the Hoover Sun to check back in a couple of months for an update.