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South Florida

Fueling faith? Pembroke Pines church will share its property to make way for a Wawa

The gas station and convenience store chain plans to build a Pines Boulevard location on part of the 5-acre church property

Rev. Keith Spencer and 7150 Pines Boulevard in Pembroke Pines 
Rev. Keith Spencer and 7150 Pines Boulevard in Pembroke Pines

A church in Pembroke Pines plans to share its 5-acre property on busy Pines Boulevard with a Wawa gas station and convenience store.

The Wawa would replace the existing Trinity Lutheran Church and its parking lot at 7150 Pines Boulevard, and the church would move to a new home on the south side of its property, which is vacant.

Pembroke Pines commissioners advanced the planned Wawa development by voting unanimously on Wednesday to rezone the church property at the southeast corner of Pines Boulevard and 72nd Avenue and to change its land use designation.

“The church would be relocated from the corner to the rear of the property,” Michael Stamm, the director of community and economic development for Pembroke Pines, told city commissioners at their meeting last week.
“I haven’t seen the site plan yet,” Stamm said. “They’re in the process of working on it conceptually, to see how it would work.”

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The existing church building opened in the mid-1960s, according to Broward County property records.
The pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church, Rev. Keith Spencer, declined via email to identify the impetus for the pending church demolition and relocation to make way for a Wawa. The pastor indicated that he would elaborate on the details of the plan “once it’s further along in the approval process.”

The project is still pending city approval of a site plan and a plat amendment proposed by the owner of the church, Trinity Lutheran Church, Inc. The city commission voted Wednesday to give final approval to a land use change for the northern end of the church property from “community facilities” to “commercial” and rezoned it from “agricultural” to “general business.”

The Wawa would be a 16-pump gas station and a 5,636-square-foot convenience store on a 2-acre site, with single-family home neighborhoods to the north and south, a commercial plaza to the east and Broward College to the west.

Another 16-pump Wawa is coming to nearby Pembroke Park, where Ferber Company won site plan approval in December for its Seneca Town Center development anchored by the gas station and convenience store.

Investors in Wawa sites have been active, too. In two deals last summer, an entity managed by the president of New York-based Castro Properties bought a newly built Wawa in Fort Lauderdale for $10.8 million, and a New Jersey company called Wanamassa Garden Apartments LLC bought one in Hialeah for $11.5 million.

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ChurchesPembroke Pines