SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — The highly anticipated Buc-ee’s convenient store and gas station broke ground off of Mulroy Road northeast of Springfield.

“We don’t have much here on this side of the north side of the interstate,” Councilman Abe McGull said. “Not only is this location ideal for them off the interstate I-44, but it’s ideally located for us too as the city because we’ve been trying to develop this area for a while.”

Buc-ee’s will bring up to 200 jobs to southwest Missouri, as well as revenue for the city of Springfield.

“There’s an estimated $30 million of revenue that would be brought in to this location,” McGull said. “We’ll be able to utilize money for other services like parks, economic development and other areas.”

The city is hoping the popular convenient store and gas station will bring in more businesses to that side of I-44.

“There are other entities that generally populate around [Buc-ee’s] like hotels,” McGull said. “You’ll have other eateries and restaurants in that location as well, movie theaters. So we’re looking for this to perhaps develop and spur some of those type of entities, business entities here in Springfield.”

There are also several public improvements taking place to make Buc-ee’s and the surrounding area easily accessible.

“Some of those public improvements can include things like roadway or transportation improvements,” Springfield Director of Economic Vitality Amanda Ohlensehlen said. “It also includes the extension of water services and burrowing under I-44. So now there will be approximately a thousand acres here north of the interstate that will be primed for development in the future.”

Councilman McGull said crews will build an I-44 off-ramp to make for easy access to the pumps and convenience store, along with other infrastructure to make the area accessible to other businesses in the future. Springfield wasn’t always thought of as a potential Buc-ee’s location.

“The only reason it wasn’t on the radar a few years back was just the sheer geographical logistics of it,” Buc-ee’s Owner Arch “Beaver” Aplin said “Now as we start expanding, of course we started down south and then Alabama and Florida, but now we’re in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky. So we have just gradually gotten here.”

Aplin said he didn’t predict the opening of the first Missouri Buc-ee’s to happen this fast. But, he‘a excited to be in the Show-Me State and bring more jobs to the area.

“It’s just great for a community from an employment aspect,” Aplin said “If we do our job right, we’ll stop quite a few people on that interstate that we’re just traveling.”

Buc-ee’s plans on opening its doors December of 2023.