The construction of Ohio’s first Buc-ee’s has been delayed.
Buc-ees in Huber Heights is being constructed at the northeast corner of Interstate 70 and Ohio 235. The delay is due to a sewer line relocation and plans to reroute electric lines.
The site has already undergone extensive work to build the new gas station hub.
"They've done a lot of their site grading the grading for the detention ponds. The fuel tanks are on site," said Aaron Sorrell, assistant city manager for Huber Heights. "I haven't been out there recently, I don't believe they've started to bury them. But a lot of that material is on site now."
The massive service station planned for Huber Heights is also in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit between the city and Clark County.
The lawsuit was filed on July 24, 2023, by the Board of Clark County Commissioners against Huber Heights, claiming the city's 20-year wastewater treatment services contract with Fairborn might violate similar contracts between Clark County and Huber Heights.
Sorrell said they are working to resolve the lawsuit between the city and Clark County.
"It's basically a contractual argument or disagreement between us and the county," he said. "We are actively working to resolve that dispute in a more amicable way."
Construction has been put on hold due to rerouting utility and sewer lines which crews were concerned about damaging during construction. The city recently received Buc-ee’s final drawings for those updates.
“One of the reasons they halted the site work was because they were concerned about just basically damaging that sanitary sewer line," Sorrell said. "And so I think that that work will resume back in the next couple of weeks.”
Sorrel said AES Ohio is also working to fix the utility issue to meet the site’s opening date.
"Certainly this was an unanticipated delay," he said. "They they haven't indicated to us one way or the other how big of an impact it is on their starting date or their opening date."
He also says the new gas station is expected to bring jobs and economic growth to Huber Heights when it opens a year from now.
"We're hopeful that it will bring additional people to Huber Heights also be able to showcase what a what a great city we have and then just be an economic development driver," he said.
