Kwik Star, a regional convenience store chain that typically has stores in smaller Eastern Iowa communities, is planning two Cedar Rapids locations.

Kwik Trip, a 50-year-old La Crosse, Wis., company, is starting construction this week on a travel plaza at 8835 Runway Ct. SW, near the McDonald’s at Wright Brothers Boulevard and Interstate 380.

Kwik Trip also is seeking Cedar Rapids Planning Commission approval of a preliminary site development plan for a 9,000-square-foot Kwik Star store and carwash at Westdale Drive and Williams Boulevard SW.

Kwik Trip re-branded its Iowa locations as Kwik Star stores to cut down on confusion with QuikTrip, the Tulsa, Okla., convenience store chain that operates locations in central Iowa.

Hans Zeitlow, director of real estate operations for Kwik Trip, said the 7,350-square-foot travel plaza is expected to open the last week of September. It will have 10 fuel islands for cars offering gasoline, E-85 and compressed natural gas as well as five pump islands with diesel fuel for trucks.

Zeitlow said the Kwik Star facility will offer food and beverages as well as the usual convenience store amenities, but will not have showers and similar services found at a truck stop. There will be 24 parking places for cars and light trucks as well as 17 stalls for over-the-road trucks.

A truck scale is also planned.

Zeitlow said construction of a Kwik Star on the site of a former Bank of the West building at 3730 Williams Blvd. SW will not begin until 2016. The structure and adjacent drive up banking stalls will be demolished to prepare the nearly 2-acre site for the convenience store.

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“We still have to work through some restrictive covenants that date back to the development of the former Target store,” Zeitlow said. “They are due to terminate in 2018, but we’re going to try to get them taken care of earlier.”

The Kwik Star will have 6,600 square feet of retail space, and the remainder will be a kitchen and carwash. Chris Strecker with the city’s Development Services Department said the planning commission is expected to approve the site development plan, which calls for the installation of sidewalks along Williams Boulevard SW and Westdale Drive SW before an occupancy permit will be issued.

Strecker said vehicular access to the convenience store will be through the driveway shared with the Metro Harley-Davidson at 2415 Westdale Dr. SW.

Steve Wrobel, a spokesman for Kwik Trip, said the store will have 10 fuel pump islands offering gasoline, E-85, diesel fuel and compressed natural gas. The Kwik Star will be located across Williams Boulevard SW from Westdale, which is undergoing a $90 million redevelopment.

While Wrobel could not say if the Westdale project influenced the company’s site selection, he said Kwik Trip’s real estate division is very strategic when it is looking at potential locations.

“We’re at 450 stores in our company and growing at the rate of about 35 new stores each year,” Wrobel said. “We go where we will be well received and we’ve enjoyed success in Iowa.”

Kwik Star’s arrival in the Cedar Rapids market will put it in competition with publicly-owned Casey’s General Store of Ankeny, privately-owned Kum & Go of West Des Moines and Kwik Shop, owned by Kroger of Cincinnati, Ohio, the largest full-service grocery retailer in the nation.