QuikTrip has sued Denver over new restrictions on gas stations that were implemented last month.
The Tulsa-based convenience store chain, which has four planned locations barred by the new rules, filed the lawsuit on Monday.
It asked a judge to prohibit the city from applying the new zoning amendment to development applications submitted before Feb. 18, the day the City Council approved the rules. That would allow the company to build the four stations.
The new rules, which the council approved in a 12-1 vote, bar new gas stations within a quarter mile of existing stations or rail platforms and within 300 feet of certain residential zone districts.
The three council members who proposed the rules generally said Denver has enough gas stations, gas stations pose environmental and quality-of-life concerns and limiting new stations would preserve land for possible housing development.
The measure exempts only projects for which development plans had been submitted to Denver by May 13. That’s the day last year the measure was first discussed, although it lacked specific details then.
QuikTrip said in its lawsuit that the general public didn’t learn of the specifics until Nov. 7, when draft text was published on the city’s website ahead of a Planning Board meeting.
The four proposals that QuikTrip submitted after May 13 made the company the one most affected by the new rules. Ahead of the council vote, the company and other parties, including the real estate trade group NAIOP Colorado, argued that retroactivity was illegal.
QuikTrip’s filing Monday identified all four planned locations impacted by the measure, three of which BusinessDen has reported previously:
• 1595 W. 48th Ave., by the Interstate 70-Pecos Street interchange
• 2100 S. Colorado Blvd., the corner of Colorado and Evans Avenue
• 5500 E. Yale Ave., by the Interstate 25-Yale Avenue interchange
• 12225 E. 39th Ave., by the Interstate 70-Peoria Street interchange
The company said it has contracts to buy the first three sites and lease the fourth.
In the case of the locations on Yale and 39th avenues, QuikTrip said it actually did submit plans for those sites before May 13. But Denver later classified those plans as “expired,” so the company resubmitted after May 13, the lawsuit states.
An LLC that owns the 48th Avenue property is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. It is owned by Evangeline Pappas, a 79-year-old retiree, the filing states.
QuikTrip said it has spent over $750,000 toward developing a gas station on the four sites.
“QuikTrip now must either terminate the agreements on the Four Properties and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars as earnest-money damages, or it must pay tens of millions of dollars to purchase/lease properties for which it will have no use if the Amendment is applied retroactively,” the company’s lawsuit states.
Pappas, meanwhile, said she’s at risk of not only losing the deal to sell to QuikTrip, but also at risk of losing her property’s current tenant, Family Dollar.
In addition to the four planned Denver gas stations in dispute, QuikTrip also has six gas locations in the city that are operating or will open soon. The company announced in 2019 it would expand to the Denver region.
Attorney Lawrence Katz of Denver’s Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher is representing QuikTrip and Pappas.
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