Windmill Market owners propose gas station to drive traffic into
town
The owners of Windmill Market at the intersection of Hwy. 156
and The Alameda in San Juan Bautista hope to gain city approval to
build a gas station in a portion of the shopping center’s parking
lot near the main entrance to the historic burg.
Jim Gibson, who also owns the Hollister Super and Baler Market
grocery stores in Hollister, said he has submitted a preliminary
proposal for the city to review and he is now awaiting the results
of a traffic survey he commissioned before formally applying to
build the station.
Windmill Market owners propose gas station to drive traffic into town
The owners of Windmill Market at the intersection of Hwy. 156 and The Alameda in San Juan Bautista hope to gain city approval to build a gas station in a portion of the shopping center’s parking lot near the main entrance to the historic burg.
Jim Gibson, who also owns the Hollister Super and Baler Market grocery stores in Hollister, said he has submitted a preliminary proposal for the city to review and he is now awaiting the results of a traffic survey he commissioned before formally applying to build the station.
“We’re proposing four fueling stations that can handle up to eight vehicles at a time,” he said, noting that the small station will likely be 300-square-feet and have an “old-timey, art deco feel” to it.
“(The shopping center) has been a successful place, but we need to jack it up a little bit,” Gibson said. “I don’t think we’re suffering as much as they are in the historic downtown from this economic downturn, but traffic isn’t what it once was.”
The addition of a gas station could encourage more motorists to pull off the highway and visit the town, said Gibson, who added that he would allow downtown merchants or the Chamber of Commerce to advertise their businesses or place coupons in the station.
“If the gas station pays for itself, then I’ll be perfectly happy with that,” he said. “It’s really to increase traffic in the center off the highway.”
San Juan has just one other gas station, a recently-opened Valero at the western entrance to town off 156. The next closest stations are in Hollister. Former gas stations in San Juan now house a second-hand store and the city’s historical society museum.
“What do we have to draw people off the highway unless they want to go to a grocery store?” said Gibson, whose shopping center also includes a pizza restaurant and the city post office. “If they see a gas station, they’ll think convenience food and restrooms,” which could encourage them to stop in San Juan.
Gibson, who has owned the center with partner Hank So since 1986 and has been in business there since 1993, said the proposed station would easily fit into the Windmill Market parking lot, where the parking spaces are 20 feet deep.
“What we’re proposing is accommodating the station within the width of one of our rows of parking, so traffic circulation shouldn’t be an issue,” he said.
The proposed gas station does not yet have a corporate affiliate and Gibson indicated the station may not sell fuel under a big-time brand name.
By not having such an affiliation, he said, “you give up a little traffic but you pay more for gas. If we had a brand name, they’ll have their own ideas about what the station should look like and the city of San Juan probably won’t be satisfied with that.”
There are no other plans to develop the Windmill Market property, according to Gibson, who noted that the property was home to a gas station before he bought it.
“We’re pretty much built out,” he said.
The city has previously rebuffed inquiries by chain eateries such as Taco Bell and Subway to build at the site, where the grocery store looks like a barn, the retail portion mirrors historic structures downtown and the post office “is supposed to be a rendition of a lodge” near the Mission.
“We’ll do the same thing with the gas station; make it look old-timey,” Gibson said.
