The City of Boulder’s 14-month courtship of Town Pump appears to have soured.
Town Pump, the Butte-based chain of convenience stores, casinos, travel plazas, and hotels, confirmed that it has backed off a plan to expand its Boulder store, following a disagreement with the City over which side would pay for a related land parcel.
Talks around the possible expansion began soon after the election of Boulder Mayor Rusty Giulio. The proposed design would have tripled the store’s footprint, to 10,000 square feet, including more space for fresh foods and refrigerated and freezer cases. The construction, could have started this spring and lasted nine to 12 months, according to Town Pump.
The problem: Town Pump needed fill to make the project work. Specifically, it needed 25,000 cubic yards of fill – enough to cover four football fields at a yard deep. The dirt would have filled in the abrupt depression behind the existing Town Pump store between North Main Street and Lenore Lane, creating a foundation for new construction in back of the existing structure.
Mayor Giulio proposed a solution. Rather than buying and carting all that fill from a commercial supplier, Town Pump could harvest the dirt locally. The City needed a retention pond to catch storm water run-off from Interstate 15. It identified a one-acre parcel adjacent to the highway, part of the Skytop Ranch, on which to site the pond. Town Pump agreed in principle to pay for the excavation in exchange for the fill.
In early February, the deal seemed on track. But then, a snag emerged: Giulio wanted Town Pump to pay for the acquisition of the parcel itself, which he estimated would cost $4,000. Town Pump balked. “We are still interested in the project, but have several more financially stable projects waiting in the wings and we feel we would be better to concentrate our efforts on those at current,” a Town Pump construction manager wrote Giulio in an email the mayor shared with The Boulder Monitor.
Town Pump spokesman Bill McGladdery confirmed that “we’re reevaluating if and when the project will proceed.” He said the company had no timetable for the reevaluation.
Giulio said, “it was a win-win for everyone to build the retention pond,” but that Town Pump was “not going to hold the City hostage.” He added: “I walked away from the table. In the end, we’ll probably get something worked out.”
