Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By TOM LAVENTURE
Ironwood — A proposed Kwik Trip store site plan was approved by the Ironwood Planning commission following a public Hearing at the May 6 meeting.
The 4-0 approval came with commissioners Mark Silver and ex-officio city commission member Joseph Cayer not present. Stephanie Holloway, planning commission vice chair, officiated the meeting with chairman Sam Davey present but abstaining from the vote as an owner of property that will be developed for the Kwik Trip site.
“I am very excited at the opportunity to come to Michigan and to Ironwood,” said Nate Byom, a project engineer with the store engineering section of Kwik Trip, Inc., a La Crosse, Wisconsin based company with stores around the Midwest. The company ships in-house milk and dairy, bakery, grocery and fresh produce, other various merchandise and commissary items daily to all of its stores from La Crosse.
The Ironwood convenience store, carwash, and fueling station would be located at 220 and 260 East Cloverland Drive with the primary entrance from Greenbush Street, he said. Site construction would likely break ground around May 2022 and with an 18 week construction schedule to be completed in the fall, he said.
The original site plan shifted the store and gas islands slightly north following a meeting with the Michigan Department of Transportation and its Regional Access Committee. The changes were to add parking in back for vehicles with trailers and semi traffic.
The main access to the store will be from Greenbush Street with exits back onto U.S. 2, Byom said. There will be two store entrances to accommodate customers at the 10 dispenser gasoline island with 20 fueling positions, along with a two lane diesel canopy for higher flow diesel customers in the west side.
The building plan is for a brick facade and a green steel roof which is similar to the Ashland area Kwik Trip stores, he said. Ironwood is the first location in the region for Kwik Trip’s third generation store design, which is slightly larger than other stores with just over 11,000 square feet and an attached car wash.
The store will have approximately 30 employees with an annual payroll of just over $500,000, Byom said.
“It will be a very nice addition to the city of Ironwood,” Byom said.
Questions from the commissioners included snow removal storage which is designated to the green space that is fronting U.S. 2, along with the back parking lot of the property. Visibility with high snow banks was among the questions.
Byom said that the evolution of store design has shown that traffic circulation is best with the stormwater runoff flow toward the green space and pond in the front, he said. The snow storage plan should not impede visibility on U.S. 2, he said.
Byom said the store would request that the car wash be allowed to operate 24 hours a day.
Tom Bergman, director of community development for the city of Ironwood, said it would not be a requirement for approval of the site plan, but requested that the store allow signage directing visitors to the Mt Zion overlook and ski area to be placed on the property corner of Greenbush and U.S. 2. Byom said the store sign is at the same location but that if the sign were raised it would allow for the Mt. Zion signage underneath.
