Separate $100 million development proposed next to Memphis-area Buc-ee’s

Buc-ee’s drawing power isn’t just limited to its customers.

Plans are in place for a large-scale $100 million mixed-use development to be constructed adjacent to the first Buc-ee’s coming to the Memphis area.

The Winstead Development project calls for apartments, hotels, restaurants, and retail on parcels directly next to the travel center coming to I-40’s exit 28 at Gallaway in Fayette County. The mixed-use development is being marketed by Shawn Massey and Sidney Seale, both brokers with The Shopping Center Group.

Massey told MBJ the site is attractive due to its location with proximity to both Ford Motor Co.‘s sprawling BlueOval City campus in Haywood County and to Shelby County.

“It’s very desirable because it’s close to BlueOval City, but it’s also close to the rest of the services in Arlington,” Massey said. “Arlington is a big plus, but the great thing in Galloway is you don’t have to deal with a very strict zoning.”

Massey said that the project’s developers are still working out the specifics, but that he expects restaurants, multifamily housing, an anchor retail tenant, and two 100- to 120-room hotels. He said that the Winstead family, which owns the 57-acre Gallaway site and an additional several hundred acres not part of the development, is looking for a developer to build out the retail anchor.

In total, Massey said that plans for the development include 120,000 square feet of retail bays, with a shopping center or even a grocery store being an aspirational goal for Massey.

A Younger Associates study looking at the potential development, produced alongside a study of the impact of Buc-ee’s, states that the Winstead Development could create 1,116 direct and indirect permanent jobs when fully online.

Massey said that Winstead’s developers and some interested parties are hoping to have the development up and running right around the time the Buc-ee’s opens. He said that the idea is to bring projects that can take advantage of the Buc-ee’s activation of the highly visible site right along I-40.

“It gives you a place to go, ‘Hey, let me take the kids to Buc-ee’s and then let me go to a hotel next door,” Massey said. “When they get up in the morning, they don’t want to go back to Buc-ee’s, so they go to McDonald’s or some other fast-food restaurant on that part [of a trip].”

Massey said the Winstead project, taking place on a large empty site currently zoned for agriculture, is going to take a lot of work to be fully developed. Roads and other infrastructure need to be built, improvements that Fayette County estimates will cost $17 million.

“I turned 60 this year, and I plan to retire by the time I’m 70,” Massey said. “By [then], I’m hoping that it’s filled out. But it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”