Sheetz has temporarily closed its store at 1901 Earl L. Core Road in Sabraton until mid-September to give it a facelift and outdoor seating.
The store is projected to re-open for customers Sept. 13, Nicholas Ruffner, a Sheetz spokesman, said.
All 23 people who work at the Sabraton store have been placed at other local Sheetz locations during the renovation project. Ruffner said when renovations are completed, then those employees will return to the Earl L. Core location. Altoona-based Sheetz has five stores in the Morgantown area.
“It’s too early to say on whether additional employees will be added due to the rebuild,” Ruffner said.
Besides outdoor seating at the store – in the form of round tables – the renovation work includes the replacement of the petroleum infrastructure and dispensers, he said. There are 16 fuel pumps at that location.
“The new store building will be 5,563 sq. ft. with inside and outside seating and the capability to fuel 16 cars at one time,” Ruffner said in an email. Outdoor seating at the convenience chain’s site is not a new concept, he said.
Sheetz declined to disclose the cost of the project.
The Sabraton Sheetz opened for business in September 2003, and is considered an older store by the chain. Ruffner said the company had wanted to renovate the store for several years, but was never able to schedule the project until now.
Privately held Sheetz has more than 580 locations in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Virginia, as well as North Carolina. The company, started in 1952, employs 17,500.
