BJ’s Wholesale Club on State Road 100 will open in a matter of weeks, its parking lot paved on Monday and its certificate of occupancy soon to be issued, Flagler County’s planning director said, while Palm Coast government today took the first step toward annexing the property. But county officials raised concerns about traffic lights and traffic patterns ahead.
The 32-acre property, part of the Cornerstone strip-mall development, will consist mostly of BJ’s and its gas station, along with Miller’s Ale House, opening around Aug. 1, and Longhorn Steakhouse. “The timing on BJ’s will be shortly after Miller’s,” Mengel said, and Longhorn will be after that. There will also be a Chase Bank. Two additional stores along State Road 100, called “outparcels” in development lingo, remain unleased. The lawyer for the developer said BJ’s would open in “late August.”
The Flagler County Commission approved the development’s final plat Monday evening. The recording of the plat triggers annexation into the city–the acreage was on county land, part of the extension of the county airport to the south–but actual annexation is tied to BJ’s getting is certificate occupancy.
With what’s expected to be a surge in traffic in and out of the BJ’s complex, traffic concerns remain. Commissioner Greg Hansen wanted to know whether a cut-through access road passing south of the RaceTrac from the complex’s paring lot, to Seminole Woods, was dead. “Because that was a good idea,” Hansen said. It would have alleviated a great deal of traffic pouring in and out of the already congested State Road 100.
“There’s still a dispute,” Mengel said. “Everyone is pointing at it and saying it’s in the common best interest, and I think ultimately cooler heads may prevail, there may be some movement there, but right now with the two gas operations proposed, it’s a conflict with the RaceTrac.” Instead, there will be barricades at the eastern edge of the property even though right now during construction, there’s been some limited use of an existing access road.
Commissioner Dave Sullivan called potentially “dangerous” an unsignalized lefthand turn, going west, from State Road 100 onto the complex. “I think hopefully it will be cautiously used. You’re always worried about that. We’ve got such volume on 100 Right now, my hope will be that when that signal is at red, and there’s folks coming out making the right turn, there will be an opportunity for enough spacing there with the traffic to be able make that left turn safely.”
The turn was not the county’s doing, but approved by the state Department of Transportation, Mengel said.
A new signal has been built at the main entrance to the BJ’s complex. It will continue flashing yellow, alerting drivers to its existence, for another week or so before it goes live.
Commission Chair Andy Dance, who also chairs the Community Traffic Safety Team, a group of local public safety, school and other agencies that seek out traffic safety improvements, raised questions about that bane of Palm Coast drivers: poorly timed traffic signals.
“We talked about this at the Community Traffic Safety Team, right now the contractor is controlling the timing. They took it from the city of Palm Coast,” Dance said, “but I’m worried about this interim process where we’re still under construction and now we’ve opened up BJs and this parcel, and it’s not efficiently operating under the current contractor. Whatever system he’s using is not as efficient as it was before. I’m just worried about the the traffic when this opens. I don’t know if we’ve got any influence on how this is going to work moving forward.”
Dance is worried that the signal timing will be controlled by the developer of the complex, but Mengel said the signal will be coordinated by the city once it is fully operational. Jay Livingston, the developer’s Palm Coast-based attorney, confirmed it: Once BJ gets its certificate of occupancy, “at that stage the traffic light will go active and will be integrated into the city system.” Everything leftover will be internal matters to the development.
“I think you’re missing the point,” Dance told Livingston. “The entire 100 is under construction. So all the lights, Seminole Woods light is under construction. So the contractor is controlling all the lights.” The synchronicity in use right now is not in sync with city lights, Dance said.
That’s true, but it will change once the system is integrated, Livingston said. “I don;t think anybody has any interest, including BJs, to have difficulty reaching the site,” Livingston said.
BJ’s applied for “voluntary” annexation into Palm Coast in February 2024. The development had little choice: it is receiving water and sewer utilities from the city, which in most circumstances compels annexation, based on a local agreement signed between the county and the city in the mid-2000s. “Because of the utility settlement agreement or the water settlement agreement, we are mandated to annex in, in order to get water from the city,” Livingston said.
Notably, however, the city’s annexation today did not include the planned 240-unit apartment complex on a separate property near BJ’s Wholesale Club’s. But it will, once that plan advances. “We don’t have any other requests for any additional annexations at this point,” Brittany Kershaw, the city’s communications director, said. but if there are future projects, “there would be an annexation agreement needed for utilities.”
Today’s annexation, which drew an unsurprising unanimous vote, was on first reading. Second and final reading is in two weeks.
