Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, Inc.
PROJECT: Extend Public Infrastructure/Municipal Services to Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, Inc.
Grant Amount: $150,000
Agency: IL Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO)
Applicant/Grantee: Village of Mark
Total Construction Cost: $767,468
Infrastructure Project Description: The Village of North Utica received a $150,000 CDAP grant to construct water and sanitary sewer extensions to help attract Love’s to a new location north of I-80 at IL 178. The water main and gravity sewer main were both extended under I-80 to the site which also brought the utilities across the Interstate for future development.
The Company: Love’s began 40 years ago when Tom Love leased a closed filling station in western Oklahoma. Through the years, Love’s has expanded to more than 161 Travel Stops & Country Stores. This project, while not the typical CDAP project, fills a gap in the local economy; provides jobs for low-to-moderate income individuals; spurs visitors and traffic to the Village; encourages and prepares the community for additional development in the immediate area; brings investment into the community; helps a Village that was recovering from a major natural disaster, and offers a service to travelers that is unavailable from the LaSalle exit to Morris – a distance of approximately forty (40) miles. Also, there is a tremendous amount of truck traffic that drives through Utica because of the nearby gravel, grain and sand operations (approximately 600 trucks per day). The Love=s facility provides a safe and secure place for the drivers to rest and re-fuel. The project was able to meet the program’s objectives to: create jobs; stimulate private investment; strengthen the local tax base; improve public infrastructure and fuel the local, regional and state economy.