Cody's expansion moves ahead full throttle

The travel center will be built on 5 acres at the northeast corner of East Kearney Street and U.S. Highway 65, said Curtis Jared, chief operating officer and executive vice president of Cody’s parent company CRW Properties Inc.

Catering primarily to tractor-trailers and recreational vehicles, the travel center will feature a 10,000-square-foot store, 10 diesel bays, 16 fueling stations for passenger vehicles and a car wash, Jared said.

The travel center is part of an aggressive expansion plan by Cody’s in southwest Missouri, and Jared said the company is actually ahead of schedule.

Cody’s had originally planned to have 16 stores open by spring, but it will hit that mark next month with the completion of its newest store on East Sunshine Street in front of Price Cutter.

Another store under construction at the northwest corner of Glenstone Avenue and Grand Street will open in April, Jared said.

Two more stores also are in the works. One is slated at 2155 S. Campbell Ave., the former site of Carnahan-White Fence Co., and the other will be built on an old used-car lot at Kansas Expressway and College Street.

Jared said Cody’s also is finalizing plans to renovate the former Git-n-Go convenience store at East Republic Road and Charleston Avenue.

Outside of Springfield, Cody’s recently acquired a convenience store in Monett. The company already has two stores each in Rogersville, Nixa and Bolivar, and one store each in Battlefield, Joplin, Hollister and Waynesville, according to its Web site.

It’s no mistake that Cody’s is entering markets where there’s plenty of competition, Jared said.

One of Cody’s biggest competitors is Rapid Roberts, which has 22 convenience stores throughout the Ozarks. Rapid Roberts is building a new store in Nixa, and owner Rob Wilson told Springfield Business Journal in November that he has plans for a second Nixa store at an undisclosed location. Wilson could not be reached for comment for this story.

Cody’s was also interested in acquiring convenience stores from Springfield-based competitor Express Lane, but Jared said negotiations “fell apart.”

“It just didn’t happen,” he said. “But we’ve got some other things in the works we can’t announce right now.”

Express Lane recently closed its station on West College, but attempts to reach the company’s president for comment were unsuccessful.

Jared also owns Deerfield General Store in Rogersville, which closed earlier this month.

“It didn’t quite work out for what we had hoped, and our convenience stores are doing extremely well,” Jared said. “It was ahead of its time. I don’t think we quite had the rooftops out there.”

Jared expects to have a tenant for the building later this year.