The newest addition to the Leeds tax base almost defies description. It has been called, among other things, a convenience store on steroids; the Disneyland of roadside travel; and a convenience store cult.
Priding itself on having the tastiest, freshest and largest selection of foods, the cleanest restrooms and the most eager beaver, even Roget’s Thesaurus seems lacking in superlatives to adequately describe this huge Texas phenomenon. And, we do mean huge.
In Leeds, the store covers 55,500 square feet of floor space, offers customers 200 gas pumps and 120 of the cleanest restrooms around. These restrooms are so clean they’re even advertised on billboards along Texas interstates. Messages read something like: “Only 262 miles to Buc-ee’s. You can wait.” And another reads, “Your throne awaits.”
Leeds Mayor David Miller calls getting a Buc-ee’s “a real game changer for our city. We worked on this for three years, and we knew if we could get it, it would be the economic boost we needed to do a lot of things we want to do in the future.”
Miller said the mega-store has already “exceeded expectations. I understand the first Saturday they were open marked the largest weekend opening day of any Buc-ee’s anywhere.”
Leeds Chamber of Commerce Director Sandra McGuire agrees saying, “the parking lot is packed all the time. I’ve seen car tags from I believe every county in Alabama as well as a lot of out-of-state tags, including Texas.”
McGuire said she and her family have already become “regulars. I go for the gasoline and their fried apple pie. It’s the best.”
All the food items are made fresh on the spot from baked goods to jerky to fudge and even potato chips.
“They have just about anything anybody could ever want,” said Miller, “from a stick of bubble gum to a thousand-dollar pair of boots.”
Lee Barnes, an attorney in Leeds is another major player in negotiating the Buc-ee’s deal. On the day we caught up with him, he was on his way to, where else? Buc-ee’s. “I’m going down there today to buy some cheesecake for my mother’s birthday. It’s the best.”
Calling the negotiations “tenuous” at times, Barnes said there were “a lot of ups and downs. It was through the leadership of the mayor and the council that Buc-ee’s came to Leeds. We first had to negotiate with the property owners. Then, after it was all set, we had to reach a deal with the city and Buc-ee’s.”
“After we had done all that,” Barnes continued. “They still had people trying to get them to go somewhere else. There’s only 38 Buc-ee’s in the whole United States. We were very fortunate to get one.”
Barnes had kudos for Pell City developer Bill Ellison who also played a role in bringing the iconic store to Leeds. Ellison was the Buc-ee’s organization’s first Alabama connection.
Ellison, a land developer responsible for almost all the growth along I-20 in Pell City, first approached Buc-ee’s on a cold call. He admits cold calling is not usually a recommended sales technique unless it works, but “over the years, I’ve done a little cold calling.”
He first learned about Buc-ee’s while on his way home from a quail hunting trip in Texas.
“I was heading home on I-20, and I needed to stop for fuel. Well, I saw this Buc-ee’s sign. Now, I didn’t know what a Buc-ee’s was. Had never shopped there. Had never even heard of it, but the sign said fuel, so I exited, and I was just shocked at what I saw – 120 gas pumps and a 50,000-square-foot store.
“It was 10:30 on a Monday morning, and the parking lot was covered up. I mean cars everywhere. I was just shocked,” he recalled.
Shock turned to amazement after he went inside the store. “I learned that people actually plan a trip around Buc-ee’s. It’s a destination point. When I saw it I said, ‘I’ve got to have this for Pell City,’ but as it turns out, this is the big one that got away.”
As Ellison explains, the Pell City property didn’t meet the Buc-ee’s specifications, which is why he got the Buc-ee’s folks to meet with the Leeds folks, and the rest – as they say – is history.
Ellison describes it as “the greatest cold call ever, and the least compensation ever.”
“The Buc-ee’s projected economic impact on the Leeds community is impressive. According to Barnes, they are looking at an increase in over 200 jobs with employees making $15 an hour. They are expected to sell some 18 million tanks of gas and top $25 million in retail sales.
“The city of Leeds is better off because a Buc-ee’s is here,” said Barnes. “The citizens are better off. The schools are better off. Travelers coming are better off. Everybody is better off, and that is going to be felt by a lot of people.”
According to the mayor, “winning Buc-ee’s is a singular thing. If you lose one box store, you can always go after another one, but there’s only one Buc-ee’s.”
Story by Linda Long, Discover St. Clair – April/May 2021
