Costco Approved For Expanded Fuel Service

Costco seems to have a good problem: they have too many fuel customers at their Morganville location.

The wholesale warehouse opened in 2011, and is now looking at the traffic pattern within its own parking lot and ways to serve more customers.

Representatives proposed adding two more fuel stations, a move the Marlboro Planning Board approved last week as a "good first step."

The board and Costco representatives agreed that the current traffic pattern in the parking lot and the volume of cars is pushing customers out into a line in the Rt. 9 bus lane.

“Quite honestly, if I can’t get off of Rt. 9, I’m not going to Costco,” Josh Pollak, Planning Board member said.

John Palus of Dyanmic Engineering in Lake Como said the plan to add more fuel pumps will eliminate 21 parking spaces, but allowing 45 percent more car volume into the fuel service area, and creating the ability to process cars 25 percent faster.

“We didn’t really anticipate this type of volume to come in, obviously. So we are trying to rectify that," Palus said.

The pumps will be stationed on the side of the propert closest to Rt 9. The new traffic model will create a larger bypass lane by shaving down one curb at the entrance, allowing Costco customers not looking for fuel service a larger lane to pass through.

The traffic pattern within the lot will not significantly change, Palus said creating decision points too early after customers turn off of Rt. 9 could cause more of a problem.

But board chair Larry Josephs said he thinks Costco should consider pushing new fuel pumps toward the warehouse, rather than the proposed push toward Rt. 9.

“The danger of what we are doing by pushing it toward the highway is boxing ourselves in if we run into problems down the road. You have so many hard rights to get into this pump, its almost a left," Josephs said. “My thought was to move it the other way. We are making the right-hand problem worse.”

Palus said that will come under consideration if Costco continues to run into a volume problem.

“If two years go by and business is great and we are backing up for some reason, we can still go to the left.”

Planning Board members scrutinized the proposal, offering several different design suggestions, including pushing the entire fuel service area to another side of the warehouse, away from the highway.

“I just don’t know that there has been enough thought into solving the problem," Pollak said. "I think Costco is trying to come up with the quickest solution, but I don’t know necessarily that this has hit the nail on the head.”

But Planning Board attorney Michael Herbert reminded the board that Costco was under no obligation to fix the problem, and the board can offer suggestions but cannot force the business to reconsider the design of its proposal.

Despite heavy scrutiny during the meeting, board members unanimously approved the proposal.

Planning Board Vice-Chair Gerald Bergh said, “I believe it is a good first step."