Dive Brief:
- Wawa plans to open its first-ever travel center in Hope Mills, North Carolina, in the second quarter of 2025, company officials said during a community meeting on Wednesday, according to the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal.
- The site at 5750 Corporation Drive in Hope Mills will cater to professional drivers and families, with amenities like indoor seating and expanded parking and bathrooms, Senior Engineering Manager Ted Iobst said during the event.
- This news comes more than a year after Wawa’s CEO, Chris Gheysens, said the company was looking to test the larger store type in both new and existing markets, calling them “Wawa on steroids.”
Dive Insight:
Wawa joins an increasing number of convenience retailers diving into travel centers in a bid to appeal to professional drivers. This Wawa, off exit 41 of Interstate 95, is slated to have a number of amenities focused on this demographic.
“For the professional driver, we will have high speed diesel offered for them to fuel,” said Iobst, according to the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal. “It will have a CAT weigh station … free tractor trailer parking and we will also merchandise for the professional driver as well.”
For families or travelers with RVs, the site will also have extended parking spaces that can accommodate RVs or vehicles towing boats or other trailers, as well as the larger bathrooms.
This site is part of Wawa’s initial push into North Carolina. The retailer’s first store in that state, in Kill Devil Hills, held its grand opening on Thursday, and by the end of the year the company plans to have 10 locations in the state.
The area where Wawa plans to build this travel center currently has a Sheetz and a Circle K, as well as a Circle K Truck Stop.
This isn’t Wawa’s only foray into new formats. The retailer has also been experimenting with prefabricated stores, opening its first modular drive-thru site in February.
C-Store chains see an opportunity to build larger stores and travel centers that cater to a wide range of customers. Casey’s General Stores has begun opening 7,000-square-foot travel centers. QuikTrip has dabbled in the travel center business since the 1990s, but a “remote” travel center concept it debuted in 2020 has become a priority for the retailer. Rutter’s, meanwhile, sets many of its stores on large land tracts to allow for parking for larger vehicles like big rigs.
Wawa currently operates over 1,000 convenience stores across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and Washington, D.C. It’s working on an aggressive expansion plan that will bring its stores to Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky and several other states in the next year or so.
