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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.