Former Circle K site at Leslie, Gage being cleaned to prep for sale

The

owner of Roasters Coffee wants to build a drive-thru coffee stand at the busy

corner of Leslie Road and West Gage Boulevard by spring 2020, as part of his

long-range goal to open 25 shops by 2023.

Formerly

the site of a Circle K gas station and convenience store, the coffee shop would

join more than a dozen Roasters in the Tri-Cities since the first opened in

Pasco in 2009.

The

Richland gas station and mini-mart at 590 W. Gage Blvd. closed this spring, and

the gas station pump area has been torn down. Circle K still owns the property

and is working to remove underground gasoline tanks to prep the site for sale.

Realtor Lance Bacon of Kiemle Hagood confirmed the

property is under contract to an undisclosed LLC. He expected it will be at

least three months before the sale goes through since the property must be

readied for purchase first.

“They’re

not going to buy if it’s contaminated,” Bacon said.

Circle

K Stores Inc. has owned the property since buying it from Craig and Marilee

Eerkes in 2012.

Roasters

owner Wes Heyden said he was approached about developing on the site,

explaining “there’s not much you can put on that lot,” and has since signed a

letter of intent for a 10-year lease, with a plan to add a coffee stand,

including a single-side drive-thru window.

Heyden

said he’s working with the city of Richland on access points at the

intersection.

Right

now, drivers can enter the lot from the southbound lanes of Leslie Road or

westbound lanes of Gage.

Heyden

said he’d like to restrict access from the current Gage entrance and instead

use the driveway just west of the corner lot, where customers turn in to the

strip mall that’s home to Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza and Greek Islands

Cuisine.

This

proposal would remove the barrier adjacent to the strip mall to allow easier

access to and from the proposed coffee shop.

“I’ve

always wanted to do something on Leslie and Gage,” said Heyden, who is excited

at the prospect of opening a store near an established Starbucks. “I like

competing against corporate monsters. It keeps the fire burning.”

The

property was marketed to buyers with a daily traffic count of about 20,000

cars.

For

commuters concerned about the potential traffic increase a Roasters could

bring, Heyden said, “We have refined our systems to push a lot of traffic

through quickly.”

Heyden said he’s on track to open the 12th and 13th

Roasters later this year, including one at Steptoe Boulevard and Center Parkway

in south Richland and one at West 27th Avenue and South Vancouver Street, just

east of Canyon Lakes.

The

south Richland location will be on an empty lot just north of West Clearwater

Avenue that’s owned by Tim Bush. It was once advertised that a new car wash

also was on the way for that site, but Bush said that’s no longer the plan.

“It

just didn’t make a lot of sense,” Bush said, when there’s one not far away on

South Edison Street in Kennewick and a new one is coming to West Richland at

Keene and Kennedy roads.

The Roasters at Steptoe and Center Parkway will be on the

corner in a freestanding building, with a single-side drive-thru, next to a

planned 10,000-square-foot strip mall.

Heyden

said both of these future locations fit with his business model to open where

there aren’t a lot of current options for consumers.

“If

we can get in before the big box chains, it seems to work better,” he said.

Construction

is set to begin by July at the Steptoe site and open by the end of the year.

The Kennewick coffee stand is in progress and will feature a double-sided

drive-thru when finished this fall.

Roasters

first opened a decade ago on North 20th Avenue across from Columbia Basin

College in Pasco.

“We

came at the right time when the Tri-Cities was starting to become its own

area,” Heyden said.

Since

then, it replaced some Espresso World shops when that business closed,

including one of its high-profile locations on George Washington Way in

Richland. That spot recently underwent an extensive $300,000 remodel that

required a brief closure.

“It

was busy, but the place was falling apart,” Heyden said. “It was hard to feel

clean when you walked in.”

The

Richland shop reopened with Roasters’ new branding, which Heyden describes as

“calm colors,” compared to the old red and black, that reflects “the maturity

of the business and its structure to help set employees up for future success.”

Future

stores will feature the same look. “We wanted to make something beautiful for

the entrance to Richland,” he said.

Roasters

added its first site outside the Tri-Cities last year when it expanded to Walla

Walla, and it is preparing to open a store in Yakima on South 25th Avenue and

Nob Hill.

Roasters

also is opening two shops in the Spokane area by next year, one in Airway

Heights and one on Northwest Boulevard.

“We

are moving consciously but moving quickly to take advantage of opportunities as

they’re there,” Heyden said. “We want to keep on serving more people.”

It’s

a big change from the first five years of operations, when Roasters maintained

one store in each of the Tri-Cities.

Heyden

said business really jumped with its expansion to Road 68, built in conjunction

with a Bush Car Wash and Bruchi’s restaurant.

It

takes about three months to build one of the free-standing shops that average

about 600 square feet.

Heyden

said construction costs have doubled since he first started. It used to cost

about $200,000 and now they’re about $500,000, including ground work.

For

the shops under construction, Wave Design Group of Kennewick was the architect

and O’Brien Construction Co. Inc. of Kennewick is the general contractor.

Each

Roasters employs about 10 to 15 workers, and Heyden recognizes that wages from his

employees often go back into the community. This has helped fuel his effort to

keep his vision local.

“We’re

very focused on the local community. The more we’re growing, the more we

realize that’s our mission: to give back,” he said.

If

the deal goes through for the site at Leslie and Gage, Heyden said he hopes to

open there about a year from now.

He expects construction could

start in early spring.