A chain of gas station and convenience stores has set its eyes on Seymour for a new location.
Huck’s Food and Fuel Mart operates in smaller, primarily rural and smaller urban communities with the closest stores being in Brownstown, Austin and Hope.
The employee-owned business now has plans to build a new store at the corner of West Tipton Street (U.S. 50) and Airport Road on the city’s far west side. The 1.33-acre property is owned by Huck’s corporate office, Martin & Bayley Inc. out of Carmi, Illinois.
Previously owned by John Richey of Seymour, the property had been the location of a storage shed rental business but is currently vacant. Richey owns the property just east where he operates Jim’s Body Shop.
Design blueprints for the Huck’s store show a 4,005-square-foot building with 23 available parking spaces and five gas pumps. The business will have access from both Tipton Street and Airport Road and will be the first gas station as motorists come into Seymour on Tipton Street from Brownstown.
At a meeting of the Seymour Board of Zoning Appeals on Aug. 22, board members approved a request from Huck’s to allow the company to vary from the city’s planning and zoning code that would require the business provide a landscape buffer and continuous screen of plants or fence along the south side of the property.
The property is bordered on the south by the Von Fange Ditch, which is a legal drain and boundary from Kimberly Mobile Home Park.
Richey is a member of the board of zoning appeals and recused himself from the vote.
Chad Leinart, an engineer with Independent Land Surveying of Brownstown, represented Huck’s in making the request.
“We’ve got a lot going on in this small area,” Leinart said. “We’ve got the Von Fange Ditch. We’ve got the legal drain easement. We’ve also got the floodway down through there, and we’ve got a utility easement all along the south side of the proposed parking and drive area.”
The county drainage board, which has jurisdiction over the ditch, is in favor of the request, Leinart said.
“They’ve already shrank their easement from 75 feet down to 25 feet from the top of the bank along this area. They did that a few years ago,” he said. “So anything else we would have to plant inside of there would be even encroaching more upon what they’ve already done.”
Founded in 1960, Huck’s operates around 120 stores in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.