Buc-ee’s seeks rezoning for travel center near Kansas Speedway - Kansas City Business Journal

Listen to this article 5 min

The colossal travel center would include 120 gas pumps, as well as EV chargers, RV parking and a 74,000-square-foot convenience store.

A planned Buc-ee’s travel center — among the chain's largest — soon could contribute to the growing list of tourism attractions aiming to pull visitors to Wyandotte County.

Buc-ee's Ltd. wants the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, to approve a zoning request for a new travel center at 601 Village West Parkway. The UG will review the request on Nov. 7.

Founded in 1982, Texas-based Buc-ee’s chain of travel centers has developed a national following for its clean restrooms, Buc-ee the Beaver mascot and colossal convenience stores. It also offers a wide variety of food options, including Texas barbecue, jerky, fudge, kolaches and caramel-coated corn puffs called "Beaver Nuggets.”

Buc-ee’s plans to build a 74,000-square-foot travel center with 120 gas fuel pumps as well as electric-vehicle charging stations. The travel center would have 560 parking spaces for passenger vehicles and RVs.

The 25.8-acre, banana shaped project site is sandwiched between the Hollywood Casino and Kansas Speedway to the north and Interstate 70 to the south. Chateau Avalon Hotel sits to the east, and a Kansas Speedway office building is to the west. The property was part of the original Village West development and has been vacant since 2001.

The entire tract is approximately 56 acres, but only 25 acres are being platted for the development on the west side, according to documents filed with the UG. A portion of Village West Parkway would be widened with multiple turn lanes and a new roundabout to serve the travel center. New sidewalks would be constructed along 110th Street, Speedway Boulevard and Village West Parkway.

Buc-ee’s has more than 50 locations nationwide. Buc-ee’s opened its first Missouri location in December in Springfield. If plans are approved, the KCK location would be the first Buc-ee’s travel center in Kansas and among the chain's largest.

Buc-ee’s touts its 75,593-square-foot travel center in Luling, Texas, as the world’s largest convenience store. That title previously was held by the 74,707-square-foot Buc-ee’s in Sevierville, Tennessee, as reported by Knoxville News Sentinel. In January, Buc-ee's broke ground on a pair of 74,000-square-foot travel centers in Georgia and Virginia, according to the Dallas Business Journal.

All Buc-ee's locations are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and most travel center locations employ about 200 people. Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. is the engineer, and Texas-based Levinson Alcoser Associates is the architect for the Kansas project.

If plans are approved, the beaver-themed travel center will add to the growing number of tourism attractions taking shape in Western Wyandotte County. The gas station giant would be near Legends Outlets, as well as the under construction Atlas9 museum and Margaritaville Hotel in the Homefield project near 94th Street and State Avenue. Buc-ee’s would be about a five-minute drive from the 180-acre Destination KCK project planned at the southwest corner of State Avenue and 118th Street in Bonner Springs.