$11B QuikTrip’s Colorado push to tap several northern sites

MEAD and EVANS — An Oklahoma-based operator of convenience stores and travel centers that plans 70 locations in Colorado has marked out 30 of those, including several in the state’s northern climes.

Privately held QuikTrip Corp. in Tulsa owns and operates 911 locations, its website said. About 94% of them are conventional convenience stores, with the rest travel centers; a handful of the latter are “remote travel centers” the company said, with a larger footprint and more gas pumps.

All but one of the 911 sell gasoline.

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Nearest to Colorado are 87 in Nebraska and Kansas.

Convenience-store and travel centers overall run 4,100 to 8,000 square feet.

Forbes estimated QuikTrip’s 2020 revenue at $11.2 billion, good for No. 29 on its list of largest private companies. It also makes appearances on multiple “best employer” lists the magazine compiles.

Two locations here are underway in Denver and Firestone and set to open this spring, QuikTrip corporate communications manager Aisha Jefferson-Smith said, with 28 others in some stage of development, from negotiation to land acquisition to municipal approvals.

Both locations are near major freeway interchanges: Interstate 70 and Central Park Boulevard in Denver and Interstate 25 and Colorado Highway 119 in Firestone.

The first two sites are part of the company’s new “Generation 3S” footprint of about 4,900 square feet for its standard convenience store.

Two cities vying to be next in line are Mead and Evans; both look to get the larger travel-center models, north of 7,300 square feet.

For the first, according to Weld County Clerk and Recorder filings, QuikTrip on Aug. 4 paid $10.7 million for four acres near the interchange of Colorado Highway 66 and I-25.

It’s adjacent to a U-Haul rental and storage business on Highland Drive. Nearby are gas stations, park-n-ride sites, as well as camping and RV and tractor and heavy truck supply and repair businesses.

The seller was Mead Crossings LLC, which state filings link to Fred Kelly Jr., a Denver investor. The LLC address is the same as a tax-exempt investment fund called Colorado BondShares. The LLC also owns 300 acres of agricultural land not far from the parcel it sold to QuikTrip.

A local source said the Evans deal is still in process as the purchase hasn’t closed. The QuikTrip travel center is expected to be at the northeast corner of U.S. Highway 85 and 31st Street, previously the Stampede Truck Plaza and the Double Clutch café.

A purchase price couldn’t be determined.

Other cities with a QuikTrip coming include “a couple in Aurora,” as well as Westminster, Lakewood, and Parker. It opens a division office in each state where it has locations, Jefferson-Smith said, and its website also shows commissary-bakeries and distribution centers. The closest of these to Colorado are Kansas City and Tulsa, meaning it could add one here to support the new locations and further growth.

QuikTrip will be in 15 states, including three new ones this year: Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, by the end of the year, Jefferson-Smith said, with Colorado, and likely other states, starting up in 2022.

The company was founded in 1958 in Tulsa by Chester Cadieux and Burt Holmes. Chester’s son, Chet Cadieux III is CEO. The Cadieux family owns 80% of it, with the rest by non-family via an employee stock ownership plan.

QuikTrip first filed paperwork with the secretary of state in 2019. Various company officers were named in filings.

The Tulsa company is unrelated to a similarly named chain, Kwik Trip Inc., based in La Crosse, Wisconsin, with about 700 locations, founded in 1965.

The two companies often spar, largely in jest, on Twitter.