A gas station and convenience store are proposed to replace two commercial buildings on East Pittsburgh Street in Hempfield, officials with Ohio-based Speedway said this week.

The company proposes to replace the former CarQuest Auto Parts building and its neighbor to the east with a 3,940-square-foot convenience store and 10 gas pumps, engineering consultant Mark Zimmerman told the Hempfield Planning Commission. The two lots along East Pittsburgh Street, just east of where the road splits and merges into Route 30, would be consolidated into a single, 2.6-acre parcel, though Speedway would turn about 20 percent of the existing asphalt into green space, Zimmerman said. The auto parts store is vacant, but some current tenants would be displaced from the building next door.

PennDOT is reviewing plans to extend a left-turn lane for eastbound traffic, which would turn into the proposed gas station at the traffic light at Triangle Drive. Another access point would be right-turn-only into the westbound lanes of East Pittsburgh Street.

Planning commission vice-chair Bill Benton encouraged Speedway to preserve access between its property and neighboring Ace Quick Lube, so that business' customers could go through the gas station lot to the traffic light.

“We like people to traverse between and among parcels without going back on and off the highway,” Benton said.

Zimmerman said he was unsure whether such a connection would be safe or too disruptive to traffic around gas pumps.

Speedway representative Chris Barson did not have a timeline for the gas station's proposed opening, though he did not anticipate it happening before the end of 2017. The company has expanded to more than 20 stores in the greater Pittsburgh area but has run into community opposition in places like Unity.

Hempfield staff will review the proposal and make recommendations to the developers before a revised plan is presented to the planning commission next month.

Matthew Santoni is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6660or msantoni@tribweb.com.

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