New Buc-ee’s coming to Memphis area, incentivizing employees

FAYETTE COUNTY, Tenn. (WMC) – The second-largest convenience store in the world is in the works for the Memphis area. Buc-ee’s wants to bring its food, fuel and fun to Fayette County, and with it, hundreds of new jobs.

The popular Texas-based gas station chain plans to build a new store off Interstate 40 at mile marker 28 near Gallaway, Tennessee.

It’s just a 40-minute drive from Downtown Memphis, and a brilliant move for Buc-ee’s, because the location is halfway between Memphis and the Blue Oval City campus in Stanton, Tennessee.

The swanky, supersized fuel station would be built on 28 acres along I-40 right next to the Shelby County line.

Memphis Business Journal reporter Stephen MacLeod dug into the formal filings and site plans this week.

He told Action News 5 that jobs at the new Buc-ee’s will pay between $17.50 and $38 an hour with an average salary of around $45,000 a year.

Buc-ee’s, said MacLeod, is famous for upward mobility for its employees.

“Very good for jobs,” he said. “200 jobs off the bat from the Buc-ee’s directly. Indirectly, jobs are 44. And the Winstead Development, the mixed-use development next door, is expected to bring over a thousand.”

The $100 million Winstead Development nearby could include new apartments, hotels, restaurants, and retail.

The Fayette County Buc-ee’s would cost $82 million to build, and at 74,000 square feet, it would be tied with the new Buc-ee’s in Sevierville, Tennessee, as the second largest convenience store in the world with between 80 and 120 gas pumps and 70 restrooms.

It would be a car-only fuel stop, no semi-trucks are allowed.

And then there’s the food, from the world-famous brisket to the Beaver Nuggets, the new Buc-ee’s would be a bonus for travelers. The tax revenue from this project would be a bonanza for the local economy.

“Based on the filings from Fayette County’s Board of Commissioners,” said MacLeod, “they’re expecting over a 20-year period this Buc-ee’s and the Winstead development will have in total an effect of $5 billion on the economy.”

The new location is strategically located halfway between Memphis and Blue Oval City in Haywood County—Ford’s electric truck and battery plant currently under construction.

The first Memphis area Buc-ee’s is slated to open in 2026 if the company clears all the hurdles.

MacLeod said Buc-ee’s is scheduled to go before the Fayette County Industrial Development Board next Monday, August 12, to ask for approval of a 20-year TIF (tax increment financing).

If approved, the tax incentive would help offset the cost of building the infrastructure, roads, water and sewer to the tune of $17 million.

The Fayette County Board of Commissioners signed off on the project in June.

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