Different Tone to the QuikTrip Discussion at Council Meeting Tuesday Night

What a difference a week makes!

A week after four hours of testimony at the City Plan Commission that generally opposed a proposed QuikTrip Travel Center on North 3rd Street at Technology Drive, comments from several Effingham City Council members Tuesday night showed support for the project.

The proposal is for the travel center that would accommodate trucks and other types of vehicles on the northeast corner of the intersection. The sticking point for many about the project is the inclusion of the trucks. There are concerns that the trucks would tie up traffic and lead those who work in the area to go east to Willenborg and south to Evergreen. Some of the corporate locations to the east of the site are in opposition due to concerns about increased traffic and that the QT would detract from the aesthetics of the area.

The trucks that would use the facility are the big issue, and QT officials say they can't make the investment needed to make the site a go without the truck traffic. QuikTrip has pledged a million dollars toward widening of Technology Drive and signalization of the intersections leading in and out of the location, along with even larger investments toward the development of the site.

The vote of the Plan Commission last week was 5-2 to recommend the Council deny the rezoning that would allow the project to proceed, with two members absent.

Council members, though, said the project has real possibilities. Commissioner Larry Micenheimer said he thinks there are positives to the project. Commissioner Hank Stephens said City staff is excited about the project and anxious to move it forward. Commissioner Merv Gillenwater was more reserved, but compared the project to the Speedway project on West Fayette, which he said has not been the problem some people envisioned. Mayor Mike Schutzbach noted that if QT doesn't choose Effingham, they will choose somewhere.

The one Council member pointed in her opposition to the project was Commissioner Libby Moeller, who said the Plan Commission recommended against the rezoning and noted the opposition by members of the public to the project. Moeller also wondered where the positive comments by the City about the project were earlier in the process.

Those comments were heard last night, though. City Director of Public Works Jeremy Heuerman said the site is a hard one to develop due to the terrain, and City Economic Development Director Todd Hull said, "Projects like this don't come along very often; just to have a project of this kind is very significant."

City Administrator Steve Miller said the QT investment to the infrastructure should be considered. Miller said any development in that area is going to increase traffic. He also said the City can look at addressing increased traffic on Willenborg and Evergreen by moving other projects around. Gillenwater, though, said a look at how traffic patterns would change if the project is undertaken would be wiser, saying, "See what happens; don't fix a problem that isn't there."

QuikTrip representatives Greg Rogers and Gwen Keen spoke for the project, as did Lee Cannon, who designed the traffic study that is hoped to address increased traffic if the project is developed.

Some of those who spoke against the project before the Plan Commission were back to address the Council. That included John Dietzen, who also read a statement from Robert Ferguson, and Jim Wolters who, like Dietzen, lives in Historic Hills Subdivision about a mile east of the proposed project site. Legacy Harley-Davidson owner Paul Gutman also spoke in opposition to the project, saying the construction involved in the project could cost him business. Dietzen said the project would choke development along Technology Drive, calling the project "a square peg in a round hole."

Schutzbach said the matter would come back to the Council for a vote at their meeting on January 5.