QuikTrip presented its project development plan for a convenience store and fueling center at the southwestern corner of Drake Road and College Ave. on Feb. 24 — marking the latest step in a long line of development attempts on the highly visible Midtown parcel.
The plan, which was presented to a city hearing officer, calls for construction of a new 6,500-square-foot convenience store with eight fuel pumps, two electric vehicle charging stations, a plaza space, walkway improvements and new landscaping, according to city documents.
The project would mean a new chapter for the corner, which has housed both a turn-of-the-century farmhouse and a modern midcentury car dealership over its long life.
Before auto’s rise, corner was home to Drake farmhouse
Long before there was ever Drake Road, there was William A. Drake. Drake and his wife, Emma, came to Fort Collins in the early 1880s and purchased a farm two miles south of Fort Collins, eventually expanding it to 340 total acres and building a brick farmhouse at the southwestern corner of what is now Drake Road and College Avenue, according to William Drake’s obituary and the history archive at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery…