A proposal for a new, larger Shell gas station at a busy intersection in Vicksburg cleared its first hurdle, as members of the Vicksburg Village Council approved a rezoning request. The seven-member panel at a Feb. 23 meeting heard pleas from more than a dozen area residents urging denial of the request, citing the additional traffic a larger store will attract.
The proposed expansion calls for a building of about 5,500 square feet, about 2,000 more than the existing building.
After discussion from council members and a summary from Village Manager Jim Mallery, the decision was unanimous. The village Planning Commission on Feb. 9 had recommended the request on a 6-3 vote.
The issue centered on rezoning an adjacent residential property at 202 E. Highway St. to commercial use.
Nick Zuehlke and Scott Bigelow, representing Marshall-based Walters-Dimmick Petroleum, told council members a larger store will result in a safer entrance and exit to and from the property.
While additional noise and traffic at the 24-hour business was most frequently cited by residents, others said the rezoning is not consistent with the village’s 2024 master plan, while a few additional comments centered on the potential harm to locally owned businesses which offer similar food and merchandise.
Many of the audience members live off Wayland Street, south of the Shell station, and South Kalamazoo Avenue, west of the station.
“Do we really need this growth at this location at this time?” asked South Richardson Street resident Kelly Christiansen during public comment. “I cannot think of one positive thing that this will do for the surrounding neighborhood and its residents. None of you live in my neighborhood but aren’t you tasked with caring for all the village neighborhoods?
“Please represent us, the neighbors who will be negatively affected by this proposal.”
Wayland Street resident Harold Morgan said it’s not unusual for motorists to bypass the intersection of East Highway Street and South Richardson Street by using South Main Street and Wayland.
He expressed concern that more congestion at the Shell station will encourage additional traffic onto Wayland and Main. “We see a tremendous amount of traffic cutting the light, and most of them go pretty fast because they’re trying to get out the other end and back onto Highway before the light changes,” he said.
South Main Street resident Jackie Coney expressed concern about the precedent being set by approving a rezoning request, suggesting that properties were zoned the way they are for a reason.
“Any single decision like this one might seem reasonable in isolation, but these decisions accumulate. Each one sets a precedent, each one shapes the character of our village in ways that are very hard to undo,” she said. “A rezoning here, a variance there, and over time, without a strategic framework guiding those choices, we can find ourselves somewhere we never actually chose to go.”
She added that the expansion doesn’t result in living-wage jobs, doesn’t promote locally owned small businesses, and it is not owned by people who live in and have been active and engaged in the community.
“It doesn’t recirculate profits in our community. They’re extracted,” she said.
“You’ve built real momentum. My ask tonight is not to stop investment, it’s to be as intentional and strategic about where and what kind as you’ve been about everything that’s gotten us here. Let’s decide where and what kind of commercial development belongs in this village now and before the next (rezoning) request arrives, because it will.”
Tom Ray owns the property to be rezoned at 202 E. Highway St. He said the biggest reason he agreed to sell his property to Walters-Dimmick was because of the amount of truck traffic at the Shell station.
“Those trucks, gas trucks, they pull right up, block the street … that’s the main (reason why) people go down these back roads, because these trucks sit right in the middle of the road and people have nowhere to go except the alleys,” Ray said. “What else? The parking lot. People can’t get out, in; that whole place needs to be bigger.”
Mallery said the Shell property site has been a gas station since 1978 and has been a 24-hour business since the early 2000s. He explained the proposed project calls for relocating the brick-and-mortar building onto 202 E. Highway St. while maintaining fuel pumps on the original parcel.
He said through conversations with Walters-Dimmick officials, site plans for the redevelopment will meet or exceed village requirements. Furthermore, Mallery clarified that the 2024 Master Plan properly articulates the potential for the Shell property specifically to be rezoned to commercial.
“The request does not introduce a new commercial use to the intersection,” he said. “Rather, it modernizes and expands a commercial operation that has existed at this location for nearly five decades.”
Mallery said the proposed expansion would address and actually improve the current parking, traffic and other problems many residents noted during public comment.
“All of the problems brought forward of safety concerns involve the current conditions that exist with the current footprint of that commercial facility,” he noted. “The (upcoming) site-plan process will be rigorously followed as we do all site-plan processes in this village. So, concerns of lighting, 24-hour operation, concerns of screening are addressed in the site-plan process. They will meet or exceed our expectation, or I will not stand in front of the planning commission and support (Walters-Dimmick’s) investment into our community.”
“This is another area that we inherited from past sins of the leadership of this community that put a gas station on a residential parcel at one of the busiest intersections,” he said. “None of us did that, but we’re here dealing with it. It is our opportunity in a positive sense … that we meet the expectations of the citizens who live in this neighborhood.”
He said rezoning is a first step, “and it’s a baby step.”
Council President Tim Frisbie followed up on that assessment. He said a number of steps remain before the project is official. He said the board’s action merely rezoned the property to accommodate a commercial development.
Bigelow, Walters-Dimmick’s chief financial officer, said the company has 66 stores in all, 64 in Michigan. It owns other area Shell/Johnny’s, including locations in Mendon, Centreville, Three Rivers, White Pigeon and Marcellus.
“To be frank, the Vicksburg store is one of our least visually appealing stores in our company,” he said. “We want to modernize the store, greatly improve its visual aesthetic and functionality, and bring tanks and pumps to the newest, highest standards.”
Prior to their vote, most council members said they would not approve a rezoning if there wasn’t already a gas station on the property.
“Had a gas station come before this (council) brand-new, had not been in existence at that corner with everything brought forward, I would not have voted for that,” said Council member Jessica Cox. “But it is there.”
Council member Gail Reisterer echoed a similar thought.
“If there hadn’t been a gas station already there, my vote would have been a strong no,” she said. “But the gas station is there, it is present. But if it can be made better, then it is in the best interest of everybody.”
