VBT planners postpone action on Sheetz plan for gas station

After more than two hours of discussion on the plans for a Sheetz project that includes a gas/EV station, drive-thru and sit-down restaurants, and convenience store, the Van Buren Township Planning Commission postponed action for more information.
This was at the regular planning commission meeting on July 10.
The applicant was Skilken Gold on behalf of property owner Premier-Dequindre II LLC for a 6,139-square-foot convenience store and drive-thru restaurant and a 4,786.7-square-foot canopy with 12 fueling pumps and 12 EV charging stations at the southwest corner of Ecorse and Haggerty roads. It is just west of I-275.
The site includes 15.95 acres of property on two parcels.
Eight people spoke at the public hearing which started the meeting, with just one praising the Sheetz family gas station/restaurants and the rest critical.
• First speaker at the 18-minute public hearing was Michael Awada who gave 11250 Haggerty Rd. as his address (the address of the Mobil station now being rebuilt). He said he is upset the commission is considering another gas station. He said his site has been closed for several years because of no demand.
• Next was Jeff Foley of Jackson Street challenged commission members to walk and look at this property which has a storm drain from Walden Woods going through it that flooded the intersection last August. He said turtles, ducks, and frogs are living there and he couldn’t think of a dumber thing to build on the property because of the danger of spills.
• Dan McCause said he has lived at 328 N. Haggerty Rd., Canton, for 44 years. He said he travels that route and into Ohio because he is a patient at the Cleveland Clinic. He said he also goes to and from Florida and just went all the way to California and back. He said Sheetz has great coffee and is a clean, safe place to go. He said this place would be for the regional/state traveler who wants consistency and familiar surroundings on the road.
• Donna Eickhoff of 41560 Ecorse Rd. said there is a lot of riff-raff there now at the truck stop gas station at the northeast corner and there would be riff-raff at this one too. She said she doesn’t like it having driveways off both Ecorse and Haggerty roads.
• A man from 41358 Ecorse Rd., where the Burger King/gas station is located, said this does not offer anything new to the community. The township already has gas stations and there are lawsuits against them in progress. He said this would add more environmental hazards and is a very bad idea.
• John of 41360 Ecorse, the address of the truck wash, said accidents are common at the Haggerty/Ecorse intersection. He said there are two gas stations to the north and two gas stations to the south and this is overkill.
• Michael, who said he was the Tim Horton franchisee at 11175 Haggerty Rd. at I-94, said Sheetz is a big company run by a private equity firm. He said gas stations lose 8-10% of their business each year because the vehicles are more and more efficient. He said Sheetz is looking to get those trucks that have torn up Haggerty for the last 20 years. He said Speedway got bought up by 7-Eleven and gas stations are dinosaurs.
• Frank, 39315 Ecorse Rd., Romulus, said he owns and operates the gas station at Ecorse and Hannan roads. He said the whole Sheetz site is a floodplain and they want to put tanks in that ground. He said soils in that area are not the greatest. He said that area gets floods regularly. He said Sheetz does not own the property, but leases it, and puts the competition out of business.
The public hearing closed and the commission then considered Mobil gas station’s request to alter the proposed architecture at its station being rebuilt at 11250 Haggerty Rd. He wanted to add aluminum fins to the façade to improve the design. After discussion, the request was unanimously approved by the commission.
The only other requests on the agenda were for the Sheetz project, so commissioners got back to the request for a special land use. According to the newer, tighter ordinance on gas stations this request required the public hearing and a recommendation to the township board which would make the final decision.
Direct of planning and economic development Dan Power said he had sent a copy of the purchase agreement and traffic impact study to commissioners that afternoon as well as the request to waive the stacking requirement for the drive-thru restaurant.
Director Power said the site is located near industrial users and I-275. He said there are multiple charging stations and a state-of-the art construction. He said they are also mitigating some wetlands. He recommended special land use approval.
Applicant David Bruckelmeyer of Sheetz said all of their sites are irrigated for the landscaping, pedestrian accessible and have bike racks.
He said the business was started in 1952 by Bob Sheetz who had a restaurant and store. They added fuel in the 1980s as the business evolved. He said it is family owned and operated and uses no private equity funds as claimed. He said there are 14 outdoor dining areas and 30 interior tables. There is touch pad ordering in the restaurant and outside and also on its website. There is a full kitchen 24/7 – 365 and customers can get anything they want.
Bruckelmeyer said they have a coffee bar and espresso bar and a massive convenience store. He said Sheetz gives back to the community, to charities and schools, Special Olympics. There are 60 high-definition cameras on each site monitored by Sheetz employees, 24/7-365. He said they are considered the #1 Tesla charger.
He said the 2005 lawsuit was not about the environment, but had to do with monitoring and now they are compliant.
He said there are flood issues on the property and they are working on it. He said the stacking request is based on their best stores only serving 10 customers an hour at the drive-thru at lunch time. The canopy has been placed in the back, as requested by the township.
Bruckelmeyer said the public knows they are a restaurant/convenience store with clean restrooms. When the EV charging station is being used, the public can sit down for 20 minutes to eat while the car is being charged.
He said Sheetz donates to sports teams, food banks, Special Olympics and Forgotten Harvest. It is not set up to have large trucks. There are no showers and they do not have that kind of customers.
He said they feel confident in the traffic study and also Sheetz is purchasing this site, although they do lease about 50% of their properties.
The township’s engineering consultant Mike Leppek of Fishbeck said a county drain runs through the site and storm water management and storm water detention is handled through Wayne County. He said they recommended the developer begin conversations with the county on this. He said plans call for a sanitary sewer to cross the drain, a water line to cross the drain, and a drive to cross the drain. Flooding issues are the county’s.
Township Treasurer Sharry Budd, who sits on the commission as board liaison, said flooding happens at that intersection and Ashley Capital cleaned part of that drain into Romulus.
“I haven’t heard anyone say it’s going to work,” she said.
Bruckelmeyer said the plan is for them to release runoff slowly and meet all the standards. He said the drain is an issue. He said they are building detention on their property to serve the additional floodplain.
He said they hired a hydrologic engineer and a local traffic engineer for a traffic study, which turned out to be 75 pages long.
Commissioner Bernie Grant said the speed limit is 45 mph for Ecorse and Haggerty and maybe there should be some turn lanes at the drives.
Engineer Leppek recommend the applicant review the study. He said they all are county roads and any changes that need to be done would come from the county.
Director Power said there should be more feedback from the county on the drains and the McClaughrey Drain has a major problem down the way to the lower Rouge River.
Bruckelmeyer said he would work with the township staff to get an approved traffic study.
Commissioner Jeff Jahr said one of the requirements for the special land use is that the project “can” be served by public services, not that it “is” served.
Leppek said the township has more stringent water management rules than the county. He said the township designs for 100-year storm and don’t put more than that on a developer.
Commission chairman Brian Cullin asked about development of the whole corner.
Bruckelmeyer said the extra property is all flood plain and there is no intention to expand into that because it would be exceptionally expensive to develop.
McKenna planner Gage Belko said the special land use approval runs with the land.
Treasurer Budd said there are two parcels and they should be combined into one parcel.
Belko said there will be a combination or a split and Power added the applicant is to combine those parcels.
Leppek noted that storm water management is different from flood plain management, which both are shown on the site plan.
Budd said Vidya Krishnan, the consultant regularly working with the township but absent from this meeting, said this separation of the two parcels MUST be corrected.
Bruckelmeyer said they will certainly address the discrepancy.
Commissioner Juriga then asked for a straw vote on whether to table the special land use. Power said if they did that they technically would also table the requested preliminary site plan because they go together.
Bruckelmeyer said he is publicly stating that they will not develop the western part of the property and a conservation easement could be formed.
Budd said she doesn’t want to take this to the township board the way it is now. Commissioner Jahr said that Budd sits on the township board and he respects her opinion.
The public asked to speak again.
Foley said he worries about a fuel spill and the spill would go into the county drain.
“We’ve had four 100-year floods in the last few years,” Foley said. “Drive down there and look at it. I would deny it.” [the project] Sam Salamey, who gave his address as 41358 Ecorse Rd., the Burger King/gas station, said you cannot mitigate damage to wetlands. They are protected and cannot be disturbed, he said citing an EPA lawsuit. He said there is new legislation introduced and the township could be liable. The request should be denied, not tabled, he said.
Awada of the Mobil station said they should know that it was a well-respected judge they just heard from. [Salamey was appointed 19th District Court Judge in Dearborn last year and now is running for election to the position, in which he had also served in previous years.] Awada said the property is full of wetlands and spills do happen. He asked the commission not to table, but to deny.
A man from Ecorse Road showed a picture of the flooding from Aug. 23, 2023.
The franchisee of Tim Horton’s said Sheetz can say they won’t develop that extra land, but they can come back and do whatever they want.
McCause said, “There’s a lot of passion in this room … I don’t think slandering each other is the way to go … I was excited about Sheetz. Don’t beat each other up. Be productive.”
Foley said he didn’t know you could show pictures so he brought his phone up to the commission table. He asked what a certain structure was in his picture and Power said it diverted sewage from one sewage district to another.
John of 41360 Ecorse Rd., the truck wash, asked when the traffic study was done, noting Haggerty was closed and their numbers would be low. The last part of the study was done in February 2024, Power said, adding the first two studies were done in 2023.
Engineer Leppek said the township requested Ashley Capital to hold off on making its traffic study until after Haggerty and I-275 construction work are done.
Jahr made the motion, seconded by Peter Creal, to postpone for more recommendations on the parcel split, traffic study revisions, the stacking issue, and a staff analysis and report.
Creal amended the motion to add directing the staff to see if the wetlands are in violation of the law. Jahr noted also any mitigating information from the applicant and further information. The amended motion was passed unanimously.
Budd said the preliminary site plan should also be postponed so it can include any changes that need to be made.
Jahr and Creal made the motion to postpone the preliminary site plan decision based on postponement of the special land use and the motion passed unanimously.
“We don’t feel comfortable going forward,” chairman Cullin explained to those present in the audience.
Commissioner Medina Atchinson asked staff to find out if there is a need for additional gas stations in 48111.
“I don’t want to live in a community with all gas stations,” she said, adding there are 200 car wash applications in Cape Coral, FL. She said the township already has gas stations in its neighborhood and she doesn’t want to put them at a disadvantage.
Jahr said the ordinance for gas stations was tightened up and this is the first gas station to apply since the change in 2022. He said there is usually not this much attention to a gas station project.
Commissioner Bernie Grant said this is transitional from a standard gas station. The restaurant is open 24/7 and it has EV charging. It has a different kind of service, he said.
Power said the township is development-ready and it doesn’t go out getting new businesses. He said now he has two gas stations seeking approval.
After the business was complete, Creal commented that the weeds and grass were out of control at a development site on Belleville Road and he would like them to maintain the lot prior to ground breaking. Power said the ordinance has a process there.
Foley asked the commission to reach out to Romulus to see if they have a problem with their Sheetz.
McCause complimented the commission, saying it was nice and engaged with the public. He said false information on gas prices was given out. He said as far as flooding, the whole infrastructure has been neglected. He said leaders need to get together because drainage is a real problem.