BERTHOUD — Love’s Travel Stops will build a truck stop next year at the Berthoud exit on Interstate 25, the town announced Wednesday. And a sewer plant made it possible.
The news is significant for Berthoud, which hasn’t had a major commercial development in years, said town administrator Mike Hart.
Love’s and the owner of the future Wilson Ranch mixed-use development near the Colo. 56 and I-25 interchange made substantial contributions to help Berthoud build a new wastewater treatment plant nearby, Hart said.
“The lack of sewer service at that intersection has kept that intersection from developing all these years,” Hart said Wednesday. “Getting this plant built and the pipe in the ground will open that intersection up to all sorts of development activity.”
The town will build its plant in stages on land it owns northeast of the interchange and already has filed paperwork with the state, Hart said. The first phase could be finished in 12 months, he said.
The construction of the Love’s Travel Stop at the southwest corner of the interchange should coincide with the opening of the plant. Company spokeswoman Kealey Dorian said the truck stop will open in late 2015 or early 2016.
Love’s, an Oklahoma-based family-owned company, has 330 locations in 39 states, including five truck stops and six smaller convenience stores in Colorado.
Hart said the town of Berthoud will welcome the increased property tax revenue from the truck stop and the other expected development around the interchange. Even bigger for town coffers will be the sales tax revenue coming in, he said.
“Berthoud’s going to try to create a cash register,” he said.
The 15-acre Love’s site will contain a Travel Stop building of about 11,000 square feet that will feature fuel pumps, two 24-hour fast-food restaurants, a convenience store and showers for truckers, Dorian said.
A separate building will be constructed for a 24-hour Love’s Truck Tire Care center, she said, where truckers can buy tires and get minor repairs done.
The site also will have a lighted truck parking lot with 60 to 80 spaces. The business will employ 50 to 60 people, she said.
The company also is considering adding a hotel, along the lines of a Microtel Inn & Suites or Best Western Plus, Dorian said.
The stretch of I-25 south of Cheyenne, where Love’s has a Travel Stop, is light on truck stops, she said. Johnson’s Corner, just a couple of miles north of Colo. 56, is the first real truck stop south of Cheyenne.
Dorian said the location also is on the path of many members of the general driving public, who also are important to the company’s business.
Until this fall, the property where Love’s will build was within Johnstown city limits. An intergovernmental agreement between the two towns, which had battled over the property, resulted in the deannexation from Johnstown.
Berthoud subsequently annexed the property and zoned it general commercial, according to Sherry Albertson-Clark, Berthoud’s interim community development director.
Craig Young: 970-635-3634, cyoung@reporter-herald.com, twitter.com/CraigYoungRH.
