Final plans for Centre County’s second Rutter’s store are moving toward approval.
The Ferguson Township Planning Commission on Monday recommended conditional approval of the convenience store and gas station chain’s final land development for a location on the vacant lot at the corner of Blue Course Drive and West College Avenue.
The York-based company, which opened its first Centre County location in 2020 near Bellefonte, first revealed plans for a State College-area location in 2022 when it requested a subdivision for a lot in Ferguson Township. A final subdivision plan was approved in October 2023, and a preliminary land development plan was approved last spring.
Plans include a 13,470-square-foot store at 948 Blue Course Drive, with a beer cave, wine wall, kitchen, ordering kiosks, dining area, retail displays, coolers and hot and cold beverage stations.
The exterior will have 16 fuel dispensers on eight stations, along with 96 parking spaces — including four ADA spots and 27 for RVs and vehicles with trailers, as well as an area for RV sewage dumping.
Fuel pumps will include automotive diesel, but not high-speed diesel for tractor-trailers, as at the Benner Township location and other typical Rutter’s stores geared toward large trucks.
“We would love to be able to do that but that was not allowed by zoning here in Ferguson Township,” TIm Bieber, site development and project manager for Rutter’s, said.
Bieber added that no electric vehicle charging is included in the plans because the company with which Rutter’s previously had charging station lease agreements went out of business, but that it’s possible they will be added in the future.
“I would anticipate sometime as a chain we will be back in that business again,” he said.
Access to the site will be available from both West College Avenue and two points on Blue Course Drive.
Along College Avenue, traffic will access the property from the private drive known as Old Block Road. The driveway, which will not be signalized, will have right-in and left-in access and a right-out exit west onto College Avenue, but will not permit left-out traffic turning east onto College Avenue.
On Blue Course Drive, a fully signalized intersection, including pedestrian push-button signals, will be installed to enter and exit the property at a connector road. That entrance driveway will then connect to Old Block Road along the Blaise Alexander Hyundai property, creating road and driveway borders around each side of the Rutter’s.
A 150-foot northbound left-turn lane and a 250-foot southbound right turn lane will be striped at the new signal on Blue Course Drive. Rutter’s will also reconstruct the existing concrete median on Blue Course Drive to provide a 420‐foot southbound left-turn lane on Blue Course Drive at West College Avenue and perform grading to improve the site distance at the intersection.
At the request of the township, a pull-off on the opposite side of Blue Course Drive next to the Penn State Golf Courses property will be removed as part of the road work to create consistent lane widths, Bieber and Tony Fruchtl of project engineer PennTerra said,
A right-in only entrance also will be created between the new signal and the light at College Avenue.
The road improvements are the result of a traffic impact study conducted by Transportation Resource Group, Inc. to assess the impact the development will have on traffic in the surrounding area.
Landscaping plans for the site, which meet township ordinance, include 47 canopy trees, 28 understory and evergreen trees and 455 shrubs on site.
Lighting will include five wall mounted lights to illuminate the exterior of the building, 18 canopy lights for the fueling stations, and 20 pole mounted lights for the parking lot and entrance.
Planning commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the final land development plan by the Board of Supervisors, which must approve the plan before construction can begin.
WHAT’S UP WITH WAWA?
Wawa is also looking to build a store in Ferguson Township at 169 W. Aaron Dr., at the intersection with North Atherton Street, and in September 2023 was granted a zoning variance for the site.
Recent activity in the parking lot of that property is related to the Philadelphia-area chain’s soil testing for the site, but the company has not yet submitted a land development application, Kristina Bassett, Ferguson Township community planner, said at Monday’s meeting.
