Henrico Planning Commission endorses Costco expansion plans
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The Henrico Planning Commission April 11 endorsed a proposal from the Costco Corporation that would expand the Costco store on West Broad Street between Stillman Parkway and Springfield Road. The Henrico Board of Supervisors will hear the proposal at its May 7 meeting.
As part of the project, the store would expand by 15% to 150,000 square feet and onsite fuel pumps would be upgraded from the current version, installed in the 1990s, and expanded. They’d also move from their current location to face West Broad Street.
Additionally, the western entrance on West Broad would move east and align with a central driveway across the property.
Site access and traffic were the only contentious issues during the commission’s hearing.
Ben Edwards, representing the association for the Springfield Woods community behind the Costco, expressed concerns about traffic flow on Stillman, noting that the adjacent Tesla dealership parks cars on both sides of the road while tractor-trailers also unload there, leaving one narrow lane for all cars. Indeed, he said, a head-on collision had taken place recently involving four parked cars.
Brookland Commissioner Bob Witte said that he was “very concerned” about the impact to Stillman.
“I don’t see any need to put any more burden on Stillman Parkway, and I use it a lot,” he said.
He asked the developer to consider making the Stillman entrance ingress-only.
Matt Roberts with Hirschler-Fleischer, representing the developer, and John Harter with Atlantic Traffic, consulting for the developer, disagreed. They shared an analysis indicating that closing Stillman to exiting traffic would cause more cars to exit onto West Broad Street with its higher speeds and then make U-turns around the median at the Stillman intersection to proceed east, leading to a higher risk of accidents.
At Witte’s request, Roberts and Harter agreed to meet with Henrico Traffic Engineer John Cheka before they present to the board of supervisors. They also agreed to review the possibility of installing a sidewalk along Springfield Road.
