A Lake City car dealership is looking to drive its business across town.
Columbia County’s planning and zoning board will consider approving a site plan at its Thursday meeting for I-75 Toyota of Lake City’s new dealership along Interstate 75 just northwest of HCA Lake City Hospital.
I-75 Toyota is currently located at 1232 W. U.S. Highway 90 just east of the intersection with SW Baya Drive.
According to site plans submitted to the planning and zoning board, which meets at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the Tourist Development Council conference room at Duval Place, 971 W. Duval Street, the new dealership would include a 33,600-square-foot main building for the dealership and service center. The plans also call for a 6,600-square-foot detail center as well as a 9,100-square-foot future collision center.
The site also would include 123 parking spaces for employees, customers and service parking. There would also be more than 400 parking spaces for inventory for the dealership.
A letter to the county accompanying the site plan from Christopher Gmuer, whose Gainesville firm, Gmuer Engineering submitted the plans on behalf of MAP Real Estate LLC, said the dealership will have access onto NW Commerce Drive and Knights Avenue.
MAP Real Estate bought the property along I-75 for $1.35 million in May.
MAP Real Estate is part of the MAP group of companies, which was co-founded by former NBA player Jamal Mashburn. The MAP Auto Group took over the Lake Coty Toyota dealership at the beginning of this year from the Morgan Auto Group.
The planning and zoning board also will consider approving site plan for the Wawa convenience store in the Gateway Plaza near the State Road 47 and I-75 interchange and a site plan for a new warehouse for BlueLinx, a lumber yard off of County Road 245 along State Road 100.
According to plans submitted by Kimley-Horn and Associates, a Daytona Beach engineering firm on behalf of the RMC Property Group, a Tampa Company that owns and is developing the site, the convenience store will be at the SR 47 and County Road 242A intersection. It will have a 6,372-square-foot store along with eight fueling stations. The plans also call for 65 parking spaces for the Wawa, which will be connected to the City of Lake City’s water and wastewater systems.
The entire Gateway Plaza shopping center is 12.59 acres. Current plans for the site include constructing turn lanes, shared access roads and stormwater ponds for the entire development. There are four other out parcels that the company hopes to develop.
The entire site will have four access points, two on SR 47, one just north of the CR242A intersection and another on the northern-most portion of the property. Two others will be on CR242A, one near the Wawa and another further east on that edge of the property, past the intersection with SW Chad Place.
The county’s Board of Adjustment, which also meets along with the planning and zoning board, will also consider a special exception to allow a gas station to be developed on the site for the Wawa.
The plan submitted for BlueLinx, which came from Gmuer Engineering, calls for a 30,000-square-foot building and a new driveway. Those plans also show a possible 20,000-square-foot addition to the building in the future.