In a newly released agreement with Palmer Lake, superstore Buc-ee’s intends to spend millions on infrastructure and one-time payouts to the town in exchange for annexation.

According to the preliminary agreement, the Texas-based company would also receive a 1% sales tax rebate from the town out of its 3% rate for sales other than on gas. The town would keep about $1 million in revenue each year, the agreement estimates. The rebate ends after 20 years. 

Palmer Lake announces deal with Buc-ee’s

Palmer Lake Trustee Shana Ball said the rebate was “pretty standard” for Buc-ee’s, which negotiated a similar agreement with Johnstown for its first Colorado location. 

A fiscal report released by the town in April said that 1.1% was the average rebate secured by the company based on stores built between 2016 and 2024. 

The other facets of the terms contend with impact concerns raised in independent reports commissioned by the town on the proposed travel center, though the agreement differs in some of its conclusions. Ball called the concessions “stringent.” 

“We’re hoping that negotiations show citizens that we are listening, that we do care,” she said. 

The town’s board of trustees are expected to vote on the annexation agreement at a hearing on Aug. 28.

If approved, the decision could still be waylaid by a ballot initiative going to residents in a September special election. The proposed ordinance would require any annexation, including retroactively the Buc-ee’s proposal, go to the voters as an automatic ballot question. 

Palmer Lake faces questions about recall special election

During the same special election, Ball and fellow trustee Kevin Dreher are up for recall over their approval votes in the initial qualification of the annexation request for Buc-ee’s.  

Beth Harris, a current trustee candidate for the special election and organizer of the recall campaign on Ball and Dreher, said that the agreement covers some concerns but does not persuade her to the side of the big beaver. 

“It certainly addresses some of the issues that people have brought up but it still doesn’t really address the fact that this development certainly goes against the town’s master plan,” she said.

Water 

In the agreement, Buc-ee’s developers would pay for the drilling a new well to add to Palmer Lake’s supply, in addition to a redundancy well already planned for the town. 

According to a water report commissioned by the town and released in April, Buc-ee’s would increase water use by 19%, the equivalent of 37,300 gallons average gallons a day. Its maximum daily use would increase the town’s consumption by over 100,000 gallons. 

According to the agreement, Buc-ee’s would pay the estimated $4.2 million cost for a redundancy well to supply water when either of the town’s current wells are offline. The store could not go ahead until the well was in place, producing at least 345,600 gallons per day of usable water. 

Ball said the well was already in the planning stages for Palmer Lake; the original plan was to pay for it through municipal bonds or loans. 

In addition, Buc-ee’s is offering to pay for an additional well and the infrastructure to carry water to its location on County Line Road. The April water report estimated that new connections from others along the new water line could also increase overall consumption by about 11%. 

The agreement addresses criticisms raised in past meetings that Palmer Lake may be running out of groundwater along with other users of the non-replenishing Denver Basin aquifers. Aside from any building requirements already set out by Palmer Lake’s planning department, Buc-ee’s would not be under water conservation requirements, according to the agreement terms released. 

It instead recommends the town look to add itself to one of several renewable water projects currently proposed or in development. 

Ball said that Buc-ee’s infrastructure investment would draw down more water for Palmer Lake but would also help the town stay competitive with its bigger neighbor to the south. 

“Monument has extreme development, and we’re all sticking straws in the same aquifer,” she said. “The difference is, Monument will have money to dig deeper, and Palmer Lake will not.” 

Harris said she felt aquifer depletion was still an unanswered problem. 

“Drilling another well isn’t going to solve … for water conservation,” she said. “In fact, it’s going to do the opposite.” 

Public safety 

The released agreement would not set aside specific money to address any increased demand for public safety services from Palmer Lake’s fire and police departments. 

A fiscal impact report previously commissioned by the town provided that the new travel center would necessitate the hiring of two police officers and the buying of a new patrol car. 

Fire Chief John Vincent also previously told trustees that he would, based on current and projected town demands, need to hire on six fire/EMT staff. With an already understaffed department, he said the new manpower would be needed to maintain 24-hour shifts. 

He also told trustees that call volume increased by 5% to 7% in Johnstown after the Buc-ee’s opening last year, experiencing a spike during the opening that then tapered off. 

Ball said that, in lieu of money for public safety, the town has negotiated an agreement for a dual service area with the Monument Fire District. She said that Palmer Lake already shares a dual service area with its neighbor for the Forest View neighborhood. 

She said that research from her, other trustees, and the town’s public safety department saw minimal impacts in other towns with a Buc-ee’s. 

“They really did not have a high call volume,” she said. 

The town would receive two one-time, unspecified payments. One, a “community contribution” would total $350,000 and be paid within 30 days of opening.

The other is a $150,000 payment related to open space on the Buc-ee’s land parcel. It would be “allocated to specific public uses or capital improvements to be determined by the town after receiving input from Buc-ee’s,” according to the agreement summary. 

Traffic and lighting 

In the agreement, Buc-ee’s offers to foot the bill for County Line Road improvements consistent with the section west to Palmer Lake. 

The developer would also be responsible for what the agreement calls “substantial improvements” to the County Line Road and Interstate 25 interchange. A traffic report commissioned by the town found minimal impacts to local traffic from the project given required improvements to the surrounding roadway. 

Buc-ee’s will not be meeting dark sky recommendations set out by the Colorado Department of Transportation, with the agreement calling the lighting plan ” not feasible” for the site’s location next to the interstate. 

“However, Buc-ee’s will endeavor to achieve a level of lighting that minimizes the necessary impacts often associated with commercially zoned developments,” reads the agreement. 

Lighting for the superstore would need to meet town code, which means it would likely be “fully shielded, full cut-off, downward directed, mounted as low as practical, and produce (zero footcandles) at the property line.”

The agreement said Buc-ee’s would also consider using lights that produce less “skyglow” than its usual LED bulbs.