Plans in the Works for Long-Dormant State College Gas Station

A State College gas station that has sat dormant for nearly a decade may soon see new life.

Local businessman Resham Dadra is looking to open a fueling station and convenience store at 605 University Drive, the site of the former Greg’s Sunoco. State College Borough Council held a public hearing Monday night on a conditional use permit application for a motor-vehicle-oriented business at the location.

Greg’s Sunoco closed in 2014 after its former owner, Greg Palazzari, pleaded guilty to his role in a cocaine ring. The 36,000-square-foot property was seized by the state attorney general’s office, which said the gas station was a front for the drug operation.

It was sold at auction in 2015 to Welteroth Property Group, which continues to own the property and submitted a letter to the borough supporting Dadra’s plans.

The name of the new gas station and convenience store was not mentioned at the hearing or in documents attached to the agenda, but a site plan displayed the logo for APlus, Sunoco’s convenience store chain, in one of the store windows.

Dadra’s plans for the property include converting the service garage into a convenience store with new siding, windows and doors, ADA parking upgrades, bicycle parking and updated site lighting and signage, along with fuel pumps. Site plans submitted to the borough show the interior of the convenience store would include a kitchen area.

“There will not be a drive-up window,” project architect Albert Drobka said. “There will be food sales but they’ll all be inside, almost similar to Sheetz.”

Motor-vehicle-oriented businesses are a permitted conditional use in the Planned Commercial district where the property is located, but when a business is vacated and its permit is not utilized for one year, the permit expires. Since the Sunoco has been closed for nine years, Dadra must acquire a new permit from council.

Borough senior planner Greg Garthe said the project meets conditional use criteria for location, lot area, frontage and setbacks.

While the 23% of the lot area that is dedicated to landscaping is less than the required 30%, it is a preexisting nonconformity that can legally remain, Garthe said. Council, however, can require that the existing landscaped areas be improved, and may also require screening from abutting public sidewalks and streets.

Council also can require additional curbing, lighting, sidewalks, landscaping and other traffic-control devices to ensure traffic from the business “does not impede the orderly flow of traffic or produce unsafe conditions on the premises or adjacent public ways,” Garthe said.

Dadra will be required to submit a traffic impact study, or a letter from a traffic engineer indicating minimal change or low impact if seeking an exemption. Either would require review from a borough traffic engineer.

Fuel tanks have remained on the site, and borough ordinance requires certification that they are acceptable for use or that they be removed and replaced. Drobka indicated the owner is working to obtain confirmation of their suitability from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Noting that Snappy’s gas station and convenience store is located directly across the street, council member Gopal Balachandran asked if there were “any other prospects for redeveloping” the Sunoco property. Garthe said the borough did have some inquiries in the past about potential housing on the site, but those plans were not pursued, likely because size of the lot made it nonviable.

“This is the only formal submission for the site,” Garthe said.

Council did not discuss specific conditions to be attached to the permit. Borough solicitor Terry Williams will draft an opinion on the application for council to vote on at its March 6 meeting.