The busy intersection of the Washington Road and Bobby Jones thoroughfares is among the latest sites for Parker’s Kitchen’s fuel stations.
In mid-April, the Savannah convenience store company submitted a request for a variance at 3900 Washington Road in Martinez, the former site of a Walgreens drugstore. There it plans to build one of its signature gas stations, a 6,000 square foot store with 10 fuel pumps and 46 parking spaces.
The request seeks to waive the required 30-foot structural buffer along the southwestern property line, where the parcel is adjacent to a residential property; as well as the minimum 10-foot buffer against that property.
Parker’s contends in the application addendum that the 30-foot buffer would stifle access from the proposed gas station onto Caribe Drive, and further argues that the property’s current arrangement doesn’t fulfill the county’s ordinance.
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A second petition for the project requests a variance from the county’s requirement that the building be 100 feet from the residential lot line. The concept plan for the gas station shows the building outside of the building setback lines, which the applicant says “would not be possible if located a minimum of 100 [feet] from the residential property.”
Parker’s Kitchen has been steadily developing its gas station locations throughout the CSRA, with one under construction in Columbia County along Jimmie Dyess Parkway, across from the former Steak ‘N’ Shake, and the opening of the Evans store, near Riverwood, earlier this year.
The addendum also notes in the addendum to its requests that the variances would only go into effect once the buyer, Parker’s Kitchen, has purchased the property from Walgreens, who has owned it since 2002. Walgreens closed its store at that location in February of this year.
The Columbia County Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the variance requests during its meeting on June 5.
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Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
