At their weekly meeting at the Hays House, members of the Council Grove Rotary Club heard an update on the new Casey’s General Store being built at the corner of Union and Market streets.
Guest speaker Alan Carlyle, a superintendent with Zernco, a Wich-ita based construction company, spoke about the Council Grove project and the larger work of building stores for Casey’s and other national companies. Carlyle is from Independence, Kansas, but said his work keeps him on the road much of the time.
Carlyle said the Council Grove Casey’s is scheduled to open on Aug. 20. He said construction should be substantially complete by the end of July, followed by a final walkthrough Aug. 11. After that, Casey’s operations staff will come in to stock and prepare the store for opening.
The Council Grove store is Carlyle’s 22nd Casey’s project. He said the construction side and operations side of Casey’s function almost like two separate companies. Construction crews build the store, then operations staff come in to set up merchandise, equipment and store systems.
Carlyle said Casey’s has grown from its small-town roots into one of the largest convenience store chains in the nation, with approximately 4,700 stores. He said the company continues to expand, including recent acquisitions in Texas and other southern states.
Zernco’s work includes Casey’s, Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Whataburger, O’Reilly Automotive and Murphy Express locations, among others. Carlyle said the company is licensed in numerous states, and its superintendents and subcontractors travel widely for projects.
That travel has been a major part of Carlyle’s career. He said he has spent about 27 years on the road in construction, with jobs taking him from Kansas and Oklahoma to Montana, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and other states. His wife has often traveled with him, especially on long-distance assignments.
Carlyle said the Council Grove project has gone well and that the city has been good to work with on utilities and other needs. He also apologized for occasional construction trucks along nearby streets, saying crews have tried to limit that as much as possible while working on the site.
Rotarians also asked about the store’s layout and whether it would accommodate semi-truck traffic. Carlyle and others said the size of the property limited the project’s footprint.
Carlyle’s presentation offered local residents a closer look at the work behind a project many have watched take shape. The new Casey’s is expected to bring another convenience, fuel and food option to Council Grove when it opens in August.