Business & Tech

Gas Station at Lancaster & Wynnewood Rds. Shuttered

A former operator couldn't make rent. A new tenant could open by February.

You know we’re in a tough economy when the operator of a gas station at one of the busiest intersections on the Main Line can't make it.

But that that was the case with the former leaseholder of the , on the southeast corner of Wynnewood and Lancaster avenues in Wynnewood. A co-owner of the place said his former tenant couldn’t quite make a go of it, eventually fell behind on his rent, and then gave up the keys.

The last tenant simply “claimed he wasn’t making sufficient money,” said Paul O’Connor, the co-owner of the station and auto repair business, who said the property has been owned by the same Conshohocken-based partnership, Mahoney Land Trust, for about 20 years.

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O’Connor chatted with Patch while he waited one day last week for a potential new operator to come and take a look at the place. “He said he couldn’t make the economics of it work, and he just hit some hard times.”

O’Connor shrugged, and said he didn’t wish to speculate on why the former management fell so behind in what seems to be such a central Lower Merion Township location, which at one time was a Sunoco. An indication that things were getting bad came in November, when the operator stopped accepting credit cards—practically unheard of in 2011 for a suburban gas station.

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Just last year, though, things seemed like they might turn out much differently for the parcel.

A for an informal review of plans to convert the gas station into a landscaped site for a new 3,000 square-foot bank.

Drawn up by Yerkes Associates of Bryn Mawr, the sketch was given the once-over by the township’s Environmental Advisory Council, but no formal application ever made it to the Planning Commission.

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Meanwhile, O’Connor’s sign seeking interested parties was still up on Thursday afternoon. “We have a few people interested in renting the space out, as is,” he said. “Four people have already said they are going to submit an offer.”

He said his partnership was looking for a one- to two-year lease deal, with a “slight discount” for anyone looking to take on the pumps and service garage, in the hope of getting the corner active again by February.

A gas station and convenience store is directly across W. Wynnewood Avenue. The two stations have had among the lowest prices per-gallon in the immediate area for at least the last several years. 

The last tenant was paying $9,500 a month in rent, O’Connor said. For a new operator with good credit and references, he said somewhere in the $6,000 to $8,500 range would be the ticket.

“We’re asking people to present their terms, and based on those things, we’ll pick a horse, and hopefully it’ll be a winner.”

 


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