APCO wants to undertake a $3.5m modernisation of a northern suburbs service station, transforming it into a grocery outlet that offers drive-through coffee.
Planning documents for the project at 5 Mill Rd, Lara, indicate that it will be similar in nature to the North Geelong-based company’s Mount Duneed store that opened last August.
The existing shop will be demolished and replaced by a 605 sqm single-storey building that features a cafe and takeaway food outlet, as well as household staples.
The existing fuel canopy and eight double-sided fuel pumps will remain.
Located behind the Lara train station and opposite Lara Reserve, with frontages to Mill Rd and McLelland Ave, there will be 21 carparks and a loading bay in the southwest corner of the almost 4400 sqm site.
Operating 24 hours a day, there will be two access points from McClelland Ave and one from Mill Rd.
“The service station has been carefully designed to provide an elevated built form outcome for the site, improve passive surveillance of the road network, providing for the needs of a growing Lara population, and ensures the ongoing efficiency and effectiveness of McClelland Ave,” the application states.
“It is intended the existing service station, apart from the car wash and canopy, will be demolished and the site redeveloped, with development extending to the vacant land located to the east of the existing building.”
VicTrack, the land manager, has given the green light for the project to proceed.
Founded almost 60 years ago by Ron and Margaret Anderson, APCO has grown to almost 30 outlets, predominantly in Victoria but also in New South Wales and South Australia.
It opened its third Bendigo outlet only last week.
In late March amid the uncertainty of the war in the Middle East, APCO director Peter Anderson slammed the state government’s Servo Saver App, labelling it an administrative nightmare.
Under the regulations, petrol station operators have been mandated to report their fuel cap – the highest price they planned to charge for petrol the next day – by 2pm every day, and can be fined if they raise their prices within 24 hours.
“If you make a mistake as we did one morning in Ballarat, our staff member went home in tears after she put the wrong price in for diesel, she put the E10 price as 50 cents a litre instead of as the difference in price, and there’s no correction mechanism,” he said.
Extracted in full from: https://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/business/geelong/apco-to-demolish-lara-shop-for-new-cafe-and-drivethrough-coffee/news-story/d7671d8933e7eff12d43302199879679
