WICHITA, Kansas -- QuikTrip is expanding in Wichita, Kansas, again, announcing plans for its 38th area store and more on the way, according to a report by The Wichita Eagle. The store will open in 2009, company spokesperson Mike Thornbrugh told the newspaper. The Wichita expansion follows on the heels of expansion in Tucson, Ariz.
The new Wichita store will be a 4,600-square-foot facility, and it will have eight gasoline pumps to serve 16 vehicles at a time, he added.
"Wichita remains a key market for us, and we're going to continue to grow as the need dictates," Thornbrugh said. [image-nocss] The company will open a new Derby, Kansas, location in about a month, said the report, as well as another Wichita location.
QuikTrip is following the Wichita population as it spreads east and west, Thornbrugh said. "It's time for us to expand," he said. "We're going to expand in Wichita, and we're going to go where the customers are."
Residential developer Paul Kelsey told the paper, "The need for their services is definitely there, and [they are] going to continue to grow out west."
QuikTrip also is expanding in Arizona, announcing plans for an as-yet undetermined number of stores in Tucson. The company already operates 59 stores in Phoenix. The Arizona stores will include a slightly larger 5,000-square-foot store that includes the company's QT Kitchens.
QT Kitchens offer gourmet-style sandwiches, grilled items, wraps, pastries, cookies and muffins. Previously, the company had these type of items brought in to each store, but has found success in making the items fresh at each location and has retrofitted older locations to accommodate the kitchens.
It is that fast-food line that is also in part driving the Wichita expansion, Thornbrugh said. "It has been very successful for us," he told the Eagle, "and it really does allow us to expand both our existing markets and our growth areas."
By summer, QuikTrip expects to open its 500th store, and in September, the company will celebrate 50 years in business. It has 10,500 employees in 494 stores in nine states. Its major markets are Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Kansas City, St. Louis, Tulsa, Des Moines, Iowa; Omaha, Neb.; and Phoenix.
In the past QuikTrip, has come into new markets opening stores in quick succession. Phoenix was its most recent new market, opening in 2000, and by July 2006, it had opened its 50th store there.
Click herefor full CSP Daily News coverage on QuikTrip in Tucson.
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