A PIECE of petrol station history is vanishing in Wodonga, while a Pie Face takeaway is being added to another fuel outlet in the city.
Work began this week on demolishing a former Caltex on the southern side of Melbourne Road near Boulevard Motors.
The site stopped selling petrol more than a year ago and since then has been largely vacant apart from some businesses that traded briefly in the former repair shed and shop.
Engineering and environmental consulting firm WSP Australia began demolition work on Tuesday.
It is expected to take three to four weeks to level and remove the structures, with bowsers having been extracted previously.
After that work will begin on removing underground tanks by September.
“The site will then be sold by expression of interest,” a Caltex spokesman said.
The station has served motorists for decades, having been an Ampol before being rebadged as a Caltex after 2006.
In 2009, its operator John Anderson decided to make the site standout from the competition by reintroducing driveway service from 10am to 2pm on weekdays.
“Everybody has really seemed to respond to it, and business is definitely up,” he told The Border Mail at the time.
Meanwhile, the United fuel station in Melrose Drive opposite the Wodonga cemetery has been shut temporarily.
United Petroleum chief operating officer David Szymczak said the closure, which is expected to last until the end of the month, was to allow a Pie Face takeaway area to be created in the store.
“Pie Face is a fabulous product that people enjoy and we think it’s a great place for people of Albury-Wodonga to buy pies,” Mr Szymczak said.
United Petroleum bought the food business in 2017 and incorporated a Pie Face into its fuel station which opened last year in west Wodonga near the McKoy Street-Hume Freeway intersection.
Mr Szymczak said that site, which prompted VicRoads to redesign the freeway intersection and introduce an 80km/h speed limit around the clock, had exceeded turnover expectations.
“West Wodonga is performing very, very well and we’re very happy with our investment,” he said.
The Melrose Drive United first opened for business in March 2005 with unleaded petrol being sold for 99.9 cents a litre, four cents below the next cheapest price in Albury-Wodonga.
The site will then be sold by expression of interest – Caltex spokesman
Extracted from The Boarder Mail