The red-and-white flags of opening weekend have come down but the pumps are still pristine and the pavement unstained. QuikTrip off Exit 5 in North Augusta opened Feb. 9.
“We thought we weren’t going to be busy, the word wasn’t out, yet,” said Daniel Torres, assistant manager. “Literally on the second day, [business] pretty much doubled. And then kept going and going and going. It’s been non-stop.”
In opening off Exit 5, the convenience store known for its in-house kitchens (fresh sandwiches, tacos and breakfast scrambles; "we make it to order,” Torres said) is staking a claim in a high growth area.
Exit 5 is only the second QuikTrip in Aiken County, the other being in Graniteville. After that, the nearest location is in Lexington.
The new 5,000-square-foot QuikTrip is in a high traffic area that, as development continues – notably, Highland Springs – is expected to only get busier.
According to traffic counts compiled by SCDOT in 2021, some 14,300 individuals travel the section of US25/Edgefield Road from Ascauga Lake Road to the Aiken-Edgefield county line every day. Interstate-20 at Exit 5 sees about 19,450 individuals each day.
In coming years, the commercial portions of Highland Springs, clustered at the northern tip of this vast planned development, will go up just over a mile from the new store.
Directly east of the QuikTrip, just across the Edgefield Road, are a little over 118 acres of still vacant land held by a handful of developers, including 68 acres in the hands of Buddy Werts, the man responsible for a good chunk of Hammonds Ferry.
North Augusta real estate company Mathis Properties owns just under 34 acres in that same area, and Augusta’s Security Land Development Corporation has the rights to the 17.5-acre strip immediately alongside Edgefield Road.
Other than that roadside strip, which is zoned commercial, the other acreage is still designated agricultural. All of the parcels are outside the North Augusta city limits. But a project map from the city of North Augusta’s planning department has this area marked as “Future Grocery/Commercial/Mixed Residential” development.
This week, North Augusta planning commissioners approved the new street name “Modern Market Drive” for one of the access roads to QuikTrip. That request, from ATC Development in Aiken, prompted the question of whether a portion of that future development could be a Modern Market, a Texas–based eatery with 18 franchises in four states, none of these in South Carolina.
In a similar area of speculation is whether Popeye’s will pop up next to QuikTrip. There’s a spot for it on the project map, but North Augusta planning director Tommy Paradise said this week its site plans haven’t reached his desk.
And that ghost of a gas station right next to QT? Southern Gas sold the property in 2010, and the property was again sold last fall, this time to a residential developer. But no zoning request has yet come to the city to allow residential development and the 1980s bones of the former station still stands.
As for QuikTrip, assistant manager Torres said the goal is simply to always have the cheapest gas.
“We’re going to hopefully beat the business – and with gas prices, we’re always going to try to beat everyone. We don’t go crazy, a couple cents here and there,” he said. “Beating the competition, we’re constantly checking it. Every single day.”
