El Paso County commissioners voted 4-1 on Thursday to let Buc-ee's move ahead in Palmer Lake, ruling that the proposed 74,000-square-foot travel center qualifies as a convenience store under the county’s Land Development Code. The decision means the project is allowed in the C-1 zoning district and can advance to administrative development review.
That step matters because the project has been searched, argued over and packed into a hearing room for nearly two years. At Centennial Hall in Colorado Springs, hundreds of people lined up outside an hour before the meeting, and nearly 170 community members had signed up to speak, a sign of how deeply the Buc-ee’s proposal has divided the Tri-Lakes area over development, water use, traffic and open space.
For the county, the vote settled one narrow but crucial question: how to classify a project that Buc-ee’s says is a convenience store, even though opponents have long argued it functions more like a gas station or truck stop. Nina Dossey, a senior executive consultant with Vertex Consulting Services, told commissioners the development would include groceries, ready-to-eat food, beverages, over-the-counter medicines, household sundries and other convenience merchandise, along with gasoline, other petroleum products and electric vehicle charging.
That mix was at the center of the hearing. Carrie Geitner, Lauren Nelson, Holly Williams and Cory Applegate voted to approve the appeal, while Bill Wysong dissented. Geitner said the matter was a complicated process and said she believed the applicant had met the burden of proof, while Wysong said the burden still remained on the applicant and that he did not believe it had been met.
Richard Robinette, who spoke during public comment, pushed back on the company’s framing with a line that captured the room’s mood: “Let’s be frank,” he said, adding, “If it looks like a gas station, smells like a gas station and sells more gas than a gas station, it’s a gas st.” His objection reflected the broader split in the Tri-Lakes community, where residents and supporters have fought over the same site’s development for nearly two years.
The county’s ruling does not approve a site development plan or construction. Buc-ee’s now has to submit that plan for review by El Paso County staff, and it will not return to the board for approval. That leaves the next stage in the hands of county reviewers, with the project’s fate now tied to how the plan fits the rules the board said it already meets.
