Tesoro station upgrade highlights coming road changes

WASILLA — Local commuters who use the Tesoro conveniently located at the intersection of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Seward Meridian Parkway need not fear a permanent closure.

It’s just time for an upgrade.

According to Tesoro Senior Manager of External Affairs Matt Gill, located in Anacortes, Washington, it is the company’s intention to recycle the building for some use other than as a gas station. Greenstreet General Contracting is managing the movement of the old building, and Prism Design and Construction will build the new one.

Gill said the project is “a significant investment,” but the “time was right” to build a bigger facility on the opposite side of the lot, farther from the edge of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

“The additional square footage will allow us to provide full food service and other merchandise,” Gill said.

He said the Subway store will continue to operate within the new Tesoro station building and there will still be a truck fueling station, in addition to the five regular fuel pumps (10 filling stations). An automated, touch-less car wash will also be installed on the lot, he said.

The expansion and move were not just routine operations. The company uses a continual process for review of Tesoro stations to determine which are “next in line” for improvements or upgrades, Gill said. However, planned upcoming road changes are what sparked initial concern that this particular station would have to move or even go away, he said.

It’s actually still unclear if Tesoro should have been worried.

Alaska Department of Transportation project manager Eric Miyaschirl said officials plan to create a continuous, two-way center turn lane along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway — they are currently in the design phase — but any necessary “sliver widenings” of the road shouldn’t be a problem for Tesoro, he said.

“We haven’t identified any businesses that would be affected,” Miyaschirl said.

It’s possible that could change in the future, he said. However, for now, as Gill put it, “everything’s happy.”

The center turn lane is expected to run from Hurley Drive in Wasilla to Hemmer Road in Palmer, roughly 9.1 miles. This will, the state hopes, prevent rear-end, head-on and angled collisions in that corridor due to stopped cars waiting to turn left off the highway.

“Currently, cars are stopping in the middle of the road and traffic usually stops or tries to go around them on the shoulder,” Miyaschirl said. “We’re trying to get those stopped cars in the middle of the road to move off to the center.”

That way, the flow of traffic shouldn’t be interrupted and drivers can worry less about rear-end collisions.

The Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Safety Improvement Program, which is dedicated to sourcing “high-accident” avoidance projects, is funding the project Miyaschirl said.

DOT plans to complete the project in segments, starting with road sections least-used for left turns off the highway, he said. They will not have bought the land they need until at least 2015, but the plan is to finish construction by 2018, according to Miyaschril.

“Since we’re doing it with safety money, we’d like to do as many as we can as soon as possible,” he said.

“There’s no secret about this,” Miyaschirl added.

DOT Public Information Officer Shannon McCarthy confirmed that there are also plans to make improvements to Seward Meridian Parkway.

However, that project is in even earlier stages, and would likely not effect the Tesoro station or cause the station’s changes.

For more information or to leave a comment on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway project, visit bit.ly/1u3lJZ5.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.