E-470 Public Highway Authority Seeks C-store Operators

AURORA, Colo. – Wanted: convenience store and gas station operators in the Denver metropolitan area.

E-470, a Colorado toll road with a 75-mile-per-hour speed limit, is seeking a potential developer and operator of convenience stores and gas stations to build at least one location by converting existing buildings at one of the highway’s five unused toll plazas.

The toll plazas were deemed obsolete when the E-470 Public Highway Authority converted to an all-electronic tolling process in 2009. The toll plaza in Aurora, Colo., south of Jewell Avenue, is thought to be E-470’s best potential retail development location, based on land use and retail feasibility studies.

According to E-470 Director of Finance Stan Koniz, drivers on the highway – meant to be an alternative to the more congested Denver-area metropolitan roadways -- have long sought access to convenience stores and gas stations without having to exit the toll road. The E470 Public Highway Authority wants the plazas to offer "nationally-branded products and services," he added.

The toll plaza in Aurora, known as Toll Plaza B, has approximately 15 acres of developable land, as well as an existing 5,600-square-foot building. A land use and property development analysis of all five toll plazas, conducted by Economic & Planning Systems in Denver and a retail sales and fuels forecast provided by IMST Corp. in Houston both indicated Toll Plaza B was the optimal location for a c-store and gas station, Koniz said.

All five existing toll plaza buildings and land would be offered on the basis of a long-term lease to the developer and retail operator, according to the Highway Authority.

E-470 runs along the eastern perimeter of the Denver metropolitan area. It is governed by the E-470 Public Highway Authority, which is comprised of eight local governments: Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, as well as the municipalities of Aurora, Brighton, Commerce City, Parker and Thornton.