7-Eleven Promotes Return to Detroit With Slurpee Mobile

DETROIT -- 7-Eleven Inc.'s Slurpee Mobile made a downtown pit stop here yesterday to celebrate the convenience store chain's return to Motown after a 20-year absence.

The flashy truck is doling out free frozen beverages to satiate Slurpee fans' cravings until August, when a 7-Eleven is expected to open at 139 Cadillac Square. 7-Eleven's Mike Anderer told Deadline Detroit that the lease for the Cadillac Square location was given final city approval on Monday.

As CSNews Online previously reported, 7-Eleven is slated to open three stores in Detroit's downtown business district by year's end, but is also considering the greater Metro Detroit area.

As of last month, the c-store retailer was in the process of negotiating four to six sites around the Renaissance Center and Comerica Park in Motown.

Stephen Oliver, regional development director for Dallas-based 7-Eleven, explained the two main factors the company looks for in gauging a site's potential success are the number of pedestrians and density.

"Detroit's metro area is probably the largest market where we have stores, but we have no stores in the city," Oliver told Crain's Detroit Business. "So, our growth effort is to get back into the city."

The benchmark the company looks for in a potential c-store site, he said, is for there to be more than 10,000 people within a quarter-mile walking distance of the storefront.

"We can be a precipice for growth," he told the news outlet. "Someone has to be first. We tend to be first and people tend to follow."

7-Eleven Inc. operates, franchises and licenses more than 8,500 stores in North America.