Opponents of a plan to build a gas station, a convenience store and fast-food restaurants on Wheeling’s western edge have mobilized, planting yard signs in surrounding neighborhoods and launching a website.
Flyers have even appeared inside nearby apartment buildings.
According to plans presented to the village board last year, a Gas N Wash operation will be the centerpiece of the proposed development. It’s planned for a mostly vacant, approximately 4-acre site on the northeast corner of Hintz and Old Buffalo Grove roads.
Opposition is mounting to a proposal to build a gas station, a convenience store and fast-food restaurants on the site of a shuttered auto shop on the western edge of Wheeling.
Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
The property adjoins the Mallard Lake Apartments complex and is across Old Buffalo Grove Road from the Brook Run apartment and townhouse complex in Arlington Heights. Single-family homes are across Hintz Road to the south.
A shuttered Tahoe Automotive service station that stands at the corner would be razed to make way for the new businesses. A shopping center that was elsewhere on the property was demolished in 2022.
Opponents fear the proposed businesses will create unwanted noise and light and extra truck and car traffic, as well as other problems.
Some people oppose a plan to build a 24-hour gas station and convenience store at Hintz and Old Buffalo Grove roads in Wheeling.
Courtesy of Wheeling
“It doesn’t belong in a residential area,” an opposition flyer reads. “Patrons will be using it all day & night.”
Critics have described the proposed development as a truck stop in flyers and emails and on their website. But that website also acknowledges the proposed development won’t have traditional truck stop features such as showers or laundry machines for drivers or space for overnight semitrailer truck parking.
It would, however, have a convenience store and diesel-fuel pumps and be large enough to qualify as a truck stop, which enables it to get a license for video gambling terminals under state law.
Village President Pat Horcher insists the developer isn’t planning a truck stop. He also noted many of the services the developer wants to offer — including food, liquor and gasoline sales — were available on the corner when the shopping center and gas station were operating.
Horcher called the complaints “a bunch of non-issues.”
“I think there’s a small group of people stirring up the public … and making it sound as dramatic as possible,” he said.
The Wheeling plan commission is expected to review the proposal when it meets May 22. That session is set for 6:30 p.m. at village hall, 2 Community Blvd.
Residents living near the shuttered Tahoe gas station and service center are opposing a plan to build a 24-hour gas station and convenience store, along with fast-food restaurants, at the intersection of Hintz and Old Buffalo Grove roads on Wheeling’s western edge.
Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
