Love’s Travel Stop approved for East Alamosa – Alamosa Citizen

Highway access points and three dedicated overnight parking spots for RVs were the areas the Alamosa County Commissioners zeroed in on, and in the end voted to approve the East Alamosa development by Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores.

Indeed, it’ll be a traffic engineering feat when Love’s opens at the intersection of Hwys 160 and 17 in East Alamosa. The major development, which was approved Wednesday by the Alamosa County Commissioners, calls for full access from and onto the two state highways, meaning “right in and right out, and left in and left out” lanes. 

“It’s a full motion access off Highway 160, so that means every direction,” Alamosa County Land Use Director Richard Hubler told the county commissioners. He added the project will also include a two-way left turn lane or a “suicide lane” to help with the flow of traffic coming from the two state highways. Here’s our original story on the news of Love’s coming into East Alamosa.

The development includes three RV spots for overnight parking that will be situated to the south of the property off E. First Street. That fact brought opposition from the nearby KOA Campground, but a determination by Hubler and Alamosa County Attorney Jason Kelly that the three recreational vehicle spots did not constitute a “campground” meant they could be part of the development.

The primary concern East Alamosa residents voiced to the Love’s development was that it not be a truck stop, said Hubler, noting how LoafNJug off Highways 160 and 17 does have semis parking overnight.

“The community felt that they did not need another truck stop. We didn’t permit LoafNJug as a truck stop necessarily,” said Hubler.

While Love’s does develop truck stops as part of its stores and it does market itself to the semi truck driver, this particular development is not designed for a truck stop, said Nathan Curtis, who is working on the project for 3 Rocks Engineering and Surveying in Cañon City.

“Love’s markets themselves to the truck traveler, they are kinda the truck stop. When a truck driver who’s been to a Love’s before sees this, it should be very evident to them that there is no truck access. 

“Typically on those sites, they’ll actually have the truck access separated from the vehicle access. They’ll have signs that indicate this is where the trucks should go…I would hope that looking at the site it would be clear to the truck drivers that this is not a site that is easy to maneuver, there is no specific canopy calling out truck fueling.”

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