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Servicetown has been a regular stop for truckers and locals in Stafford for 40 years. 'After all the traffic, this is like an oasis,' said Florida trucker Perry Grayson.
Willie Johnson plays a computer game at Servicetown, which has arcade and computer games, food and showers for truckers.
Trucks line up in the parking lot of Servicetown on U.S. 17 in Stafford. After operating for 40 years, it will soon close for good.
Gus Sullivan of Fredericksburg waits for breakfast at Servicetown as Willie Johnson (rear, left) and Ray Heflin
Servicetown waitress Jackie Godley carries food to customers sitting at the counter yesterday.
Moyne Marcoe, who has worked the fuel desk off and on since 1978, |
Stafford's Servicetown to shut down April 27
Trucker Don White couldn't believe his ears as he drove to Servicetown Travel Plaza in Stafford County on Thursday.
"Say it isn't so," he said while paying his bill inside the nearly 40-year-old truck stop on U.S. 17. "Tell me you aren't closing."
Lucky Russell, who's worked the cash registers at Servicetown since 1967, confirmed the news.
"April 27," she said, "is our last day."
White, who was hauling a 105,000-pound excavator for Yarbrough Transfer in Winston-Salem, N.C., was stunned.
"This is the last place for truckers hauling oversized equipment to stop before getting on [Interstate] 495 or 695," he said. "It will be sorely missed."
Servicetown sits on approximately 17 acres just off the Interstate 95 interchange with bustling Warrenton Road, as this stretch of U.S. 17 is known.
It's bordered by a McDonald's and the Blue Beacon Truck Wash on one side and a Chevron gas station on the other. Days Inn is just across the highway.
The site, which has a vast parking lot that can accommodate 200 trucks, has caught the eye of a number of potential buyers over the years. One finally made an undisclosed offer that has been accepted. It includes honoring the lease for the Fredericksburg Truck Center, a big-truck garage behind Servicetown, said J.P. Eck, who co-owns the truck stop with two other Fredericksburg businessmen. His partners are Jeffrey Scott, owner and president of Advantage Business Brokerage, and William Johnson, a commercial real-estate appraiser and developer.
"We've been very successful here," Eck said. "We're not selling because independent truck stops are a dying breed. The timing was right because it was a real-estate deal."
He declined to say who the buyer is or how much the property is going for because the sale won't be final until April 28.
But Jon Eitel, who was working at the fuel sales counter with Russell, told White that there were rumors Servicetown would be replaced by a strip mall, Wal-Mart or SuperTarget.
"That's exactly what this country needs," White groused. "Another cotton-pickin' Wal-Mart."
Bob Carter, Stafford's assistant director of economic development, said the Servicetown property is zoned urban commercial and would be a good location for a hotel, restaurants and retail stores.
"I think a non-truck-stop business there would be a statement to the increase in the quality of businesses that are coming to Stafford," he said.
The Silver Cos. has already cleared land about a mile farther west on U.S. 17 for the Commercial Center at Celebrate Virginia, a 500,000-square-foot shopping complex with a grocery store and retail, restaurant and service tenants.
It is part of the Fredericksburg-based developer's plans for Celebrate Virginia, a mammoth project on both the Stafford and city sides of the Rappahannock River that will include the National Slavery Museum, a convention center and Cannon Ridge Golf Resort, as well as homes, retail centers and offices.
Replacing Servicetown with another commercial venture could mean more tax revenue for Stafford, said Commissioner of Revenue Scott Mayausky. Though the truck stop does generate sales and meals taxes from the restaurant, the fuel sold to the big rigs is exempt from the local gas tax. Trucking is considered interstate commerce, which is regulated by the federal government, so it is exempt from many state and local laws and taxes.
"A typical gas station in Stafford would pay $20,000 to $25,000 in gas taxes," Mayausky said. "We get virtually nothing from Servicetown. We get property taxes and any sales and meals taxes, and that's it."
Servicetown Inc., an agency of Phillips Petroleum Corp., purchased the land for the truck stop in 1964, the year Interstate 95 opened in Stafford. Completed two years later, the $2 million facility included a truck terminal with three dining rooms, a truckers' motel, automated pumps for gas and diesel, and a repair shop.
It was the first large truck stop along this once-rural stretch of highway. Jarrell's Truck Plaza opened at Doswell a year later.
Now that it's closing, Carmel Church in Caroline County will have I-95's northernmost truck stops in Virginia.
Gary Wilson, economic development director in Caroline, said that could be a boon for his county, depending on the flow of traffic that once visited Servicetown.
"Anything that minimizes competition and funnels the flow of traffic to Carmel Church is likely to be a good thing for that interchange," he said.
Back in 1964, Stafford County was interested in the Servicetown project because the company agreed to install a 2-mile-long water and sewer line from Falmouth and a 150,000-gallon elevated water storage tank. Servicetown expected to recover most of the cost by selling cut-in fees to businesses and residents who wanted to connect to the water line.
Russell recalled that it was one of the few businesses on Warrenton Road at the time.
"There was a gas station where Arby's is now, and Heflin's Garage," she said. "That was about it until three years later when Best Western was built."
About 300 to 400 truck drivers would pull in on Russell's eight-hour shift to refuel, grab something to eat or catch up on sleep at the 24-hour facility, she said. Today, about 500 to 600 trucks stop at Servicetown each day.
"It was busier then because there were more trucking companies. Truckers would come in and charge their bills to the companies," Russell said. "Now there are more independents."
Phillips Petroleum leased the truck-stop site from Servicetown for 20 years. After that, it was independently owned.
The truck stop made headlines in 1976 when State Water Control Board officials investigated a spill of hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel from the truck stop into the waters of England Run, and again in 1990 when David C. Eberhart III, the region's drug prosecutor, alleged that prostitution and drug dealing had become rampant there.
Prostitutes advertised their services over CB radio. One Falmouth resident complained in a 1990 newspaper article, "We're getting a reputation for being the whorehouse of the East Coast."
Eberhart threatened to close Servicetown, but the shutdown was averted when the owners agreed to hire extra security to patrol the parking lot and to close what had become known among truckers as "party row," a 75- by 300-foot overnight parking area, according to news stories published in The Free Lance-Star.
Stafford Sheriff's Maj. David Decatur said there have been few problems at Servicetown in recent years. "Certainly nothing like it was before. We don't see anywhere near the activity that we used to."
Eck, Scott and Johnson spiffed up Servicetown when they purchased it. They converted a motel on the property into office space, refurbished the restaurant, replaced old fuel-storage tanks and installed new fueling stations.
Eck said he told the truck stop's 60 employees on April 4 that Servicetown would close and its furniture, fixtures and related paraphernalia would be sold.
"The easiest thing would have been to close the doors and not say anything, but I have some loyal employees," he said. "The majority of them are staying on until the end."
Staff reporters Ruth Finch and Keith Epps contributed to this story.
To reach CATHY JETT: 540/374-5407 cjett@freelancestar.com
