Costco store in Perrysburg to open in June
Costco Wholesale Corp. plans to open its Perrysburg store in June, a city official said.
That date is much earlier than the last announced time frame by a Costco representative, which was by this fall.
The store, the area’s second Costco, is under construction, with most of the work now inside the building. It is to be a 154,300-square foot store at the southeast corner of State Rt. 25 and Eckel Junction Road. The Costco store in West Toledo at West Central Avenue and Secor Road opened in 2007.
“It should be a smooth next couple of months until the opening,” said Brody Walters, city of Perrysburg planning and zoning administrator. He said Costco representatives are planning for a June opening.
The Perrysburg Costco project in the past two years ran into a number of delays and faced some community opposition, mostly related to traffic concerns.
When the warehouse club company proposed its store in 2013, it hoped to have the store opened by late in 2014. The store didn’t received city approvals until about a year ago, but ran into a problem with an underground natural gas line that crossed the project’s 28 acres, the site of a former horse farm.
Costco and the operator of the pipeline, Columbia Gas Transmissions, agreed how to reroute the pipeline so that neither the store nor the store’s parking lot would be on top of the line. The pipeline operator needed the ability to monitor the pipeline for leaks and to have easy access for repairs, so it did not want pavement or buildings on top of the line.
Before that agreement was reached, Costco representative Ted Johnson said that the store likely would open in the fall of 2015. He declined to comment on Monday.
Construction of the store began in the fall, and the pipeline rerouting began shortly afterward. With the pipeline work completed, Costco accomplished its goal of enclosing the facility by the holidays. That enabled work to continue inside the store during the winter
The project is to include an on-site 16-pump gas station and 720 parking spaces. The work on the gas station, to be along State Rt. 25, hasn’t begun. The store is visible from nearby U.S. 23/I-475.
Costco’s site has two outlots on Eckel Juncton which plans have indicated could be a bank and a fast-food restaurant. But Mr. Walters said the plan is not to develop those for two years.
Many residents have been concerned about added traffic that Costco will bring. A Costco traffic study says that, during the peak evening rush hour, the store will add nearly 500 vehicles using the State Rt. 25 and Eckel Junction intersection. About 3,300 vehicles pass through the intersection at a peak evening hour now, according to Perrysburg officials. The intersection now handles about 41,000 vehicles a day.
Perrysburg late last year completed a $2.25-million road project that added five lanes and lengthened four others at the road crossing, designed to accommodate existing and future Costco traffic. Still to be completed on the road project is grass seeding and permanent paint on the roads, to be finished when the weather warms up.
Contact Matt Thompson at: mthompson@theblade.com, 419-356-8786, or on Twitter at @mthompson25.