By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
Plans for a new Maverik convenience store in downtown Overton were reviewed by the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board last week.
During a meeting held on Wednesday evening, June 26, the board approved three zoning requests in connection with the new store which is proposed to be built on the vacant parcel on the southwest corner of Moapa Valley Blvd and Jones Street.
The documents propose a 4,425 sq ft convenience store building as well as a fueling canopy on the 3.43 acre parcel.
“We are looking to relocate our existing Maverik store to another property so that we could offer a larger facility and more fuel offerings,” said Richard Piggott, who was representing the developer at the meeting.
Piggott explained that the store will be significantly larger than the current Overton Maverik; similar to the company’s Tropical Pkwy and Christy Lane location in North Las Vegas only slightly smaller.
“The larger store will allow us to offer the Bonfire Grill which isn’t offered in the current location,” Piggott said. “That is a feature which sells pizzas, tacos, salads, burritos and more. It will be nice to have all of the full offerings that Maverik supplies to the neighborhood here.”
The new store will also offer an RV dump station which will be free to the customers, Piggott said.
The plans show the store building placed back about 90 feet from the north border of the property.
Piggott explained that the original plans had the store closer to Moapa Valley Blvd. But Clark County Flood Control, concerned about flood waters flowing through the north end of the parcel required it to be set back further, allowing for a large landscaped area in front of the store to accommodate drainage.
The first of the three zoning items requested a zone change to reclassify a portion of the site from residential to commercial zoning. Piggott explained that a southern portion of the property, along Bonelli Ave., had originally been designated with Residential Single Family zoning. The proposed change would just make the parcel a uniform zoning, he said.
Much of the southern end of the parcel would be left vacant due to drainage concerns, Piggott added. But because the store was set back so far on the parcel, construction would be flowing over onto the residential-zoned portion.
The board voted unanimously to approve the zone change.
The second request would approve the company to give a narrow strip of land along the west edge of Jones and the south edge of Bonelli as a right-of-way for a detached sidewalk with gutter and required landscaping.
Again, the board unanimously approved this item as well.
The third item before the board was a request for a waiver of development standards on an element to the west edge of the property.
Piggott explained that the county code required a double row of staggered evergreen trees to be placed along that western border. The developer had placed the underground gasoline storage tanks further to the west to accommodate some of the setback requirements on the parcel. This made it difficult to fit a double row of the trees in a small segment of the border, Piggott said. Thus, the developer was asking for the standard to be waived to allow for a single row of trees in that segment.
MVTAB member Lori Houston asked how it would affect the plans if this waiver was not granted.
“We would have to move the tanks back a little to the east,” Piggott responded. “That is something we could do. But we would prefer not to because the site plan works better this way. And with what we are asking for, you will still get the same screening effects. The trees would just be in a line rather than staggered.”
Houston had specifically invited neighboring property owners to attend the meeting to give input on this matter. Jared Rust, who owns an adjoining apartment complex to the west, said that he had no problem with the waiver.
The board approved the waiver with a unanimous vote.
During public comment period, the question was asked what was planned for the existing Maverik location. Piggott said that the company would most likely close the old location.
“When we close a location, we typically clean everything up,” he said. “We will remove the fuel canopy and pumps, take the tanks out of the ground and restore it to a parking lot area. Everything is removed out of the building so that it is just a shell. Then we will see if there is a way to repurpose the existing building.”
