Parker’s convenience-store chain plans to open its first Florida location on a 10-acre site in North Jacksonville.
"At Parker's, we're focused on strategic growth and continue to explore potential new markets. As we continue to grow, we believe Florida is a good area to explore and hope residents would welcome our award-winning Parker's Kitchen food, inspiring architecture and powerful commitment to giving back to the community," the company said in a statement for CSP Daily News.
Drayton-Parker Cos., a unit of Savannah, Georgia-based Parker Cos., purchased the site off I-295 at Faye Road and Alta Drive for $5.3 million with plans to develop it, the Jacksonville Daily Record reported.
A 5,175-square-foot Parker’s Kitchen convenience store with up to 26 fuel pumps is expected to take up about 3.11 acres on the site. The fee to mitigate the environmental impact of the project is about $397,000, according to the news report.
- Parker Co.’s is No. 94 on CSP’s 2023 Top 202 list of U.S. convenience stores by store count.
While this will be the first Florida site for Parker’s, the company is expanding in the Southeast and has announced plans to enter the Augusta, Georgia, area with several new locations. The first one, at a former Popeye’s restaurant site at Windsor Spring Road and Tobacco Road in Augusta, is scheduled to open in 2024. The 3,800-square-foot Parker’s Kitchen store will offer Southern-style breakfast, lunch and dinner foodservice items and convenience items.
Meanwhile, the company announced Wednesday that Thomas Mathewes, its senior real estate project manager, was named to Charleston Regional Business Journal’s 2023 Forty Under 40 list and will be featured in the journal’s Sept. 18 issue.
“He’s a professional with exceptional character who, at the age of 34, has already contributed significantly to the growth of our company and to the preservation of Charleston’s historic architecture,” said Parker’s Founder and CEO Greg Parker. Mathewes, a Charleston, South Carolina native, is active in identifying new locations for acquisition and development in coastal South Carolina.
And in South Carolina this week, Parker’s agreed to pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from a South Carolina wrongful death case.The lawsuit stems from an Feb. 23, 2019, boating crash that occurred in South Carolina, which took the life of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, according to legal documents filed in the case. Parker’s Co. was accused of selling alcohol to a minor, Paul Murdaugh, who used his older brother’s driver’s license to make the purchase at a Parker’s convenience store in Ridgeland, South Carolina, the lawsuit said.
According to the original legal complaint, “At the time of the collision, the minor who was operating the boat was intoxicated from alcohol that was illegally sold by Parker’s.”
In a statement obtained by CSP Daily News Monday, Parker’s Attorney PK Shere confirmed the case had been settled at the request of the insurance carriers. “The application of the joint and several liability law in South Carolina meant that, if Parker’s was found even 1% at fault, it would have paid for the entirety of any verdict rendered against the Murdaugh family. The unfairness of that caused Parker’s insurance carriers to resolve these suits to avoid paying the likely award intended to punish Alex Murdaugh,” Shere said.
“This marks the conclusion of all the boat crash cases. Our hearts continue to go out to the Beach family. We sincerely hope that all involved parties will find some measure of closure,” he said.
The company had no further comment on the settlement, a company spokesperson said Tuesday.