First Kansas Buc-ee’s breaks ground in Wyandotte County

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Ground is officially broken for the first Buc-ee’s location in Kansas. A project that’s been years in the making.

It promises to be a driver for commerce and tourism alike.

Buc-ee’s locations have proven to be popular attractions. There are 54 of these enormous gas station locations from coast-to-coast.

The company’s founder said this will bring business from the interstate to the cash registers, as travelers seek clean bathrooms, brisket, beef jerky and “Beaver Nuggets” too.

Wyandotte County leaders on Thursday welcomed Buc-ee’s leaders, who until 2019, only had stores in Texas.

“Thank you to the Buc-ee’s team for choosing Kansas City, Kansas and Wyandotte County, right in the heart of America, to be your next place to build something great,” said Mayor Tyrone Garner.

The new location will be located at 110th Street and Village West Parkway, next to Kansas Speedway. It will be 74,000 square feet, with more than 100 gas pumps, clean bathrooms and fresh food.

“We could not be more excited about Buc-ee’s coming to Kansas City, I can’t be more excited about having Buc-ee’s as a neighbor,” said Kansas Speedway President Pat Warren. “We’ve been here 25 years, this is going to have a huge impact on our area.”

Bucee’s founder Arch “Beaver” Aplin III said the company designs these travel centers to pull in business from nearby interstate travelers.

“This is our first store in Kansas,” Aplin said. “This is going to be an incredible project right here next to the speedway. It’s on the interstate. It’s one of our big stores. It’s going to be a phenomenal store. I think we’re — in a little over a year, we’ll be back here, hopefully.”

About two years or so, according to Aplin, whose company paid $90 million to buy the land from NASCAR and Kansas Speedway. It’s expected to bring in 4 to 5 million guests each year.

The groundbreaking is welcome news to Grandview, Missouri resident and Bucee’s fanatic Kelly Beard Tittone and her daughter Heather. They love traveling form store to store, colecting goodies from Buc-ee’s as they go.

“We’re excited. We can save five hours of driving to Springfield. It’s so good for the local economy,” she added. “We support other places like Branson, so we’ll definitely support this eight times per year, maybe once per month.”

Bucee’s promises jobs too. Aplin told FOX4 this will create 200 to 250 full time positions and most employees will make $18 to $20 per hour.

He also said some managers will earn salaries in the six-figure range.