Fuel and forecourt retailer Applegreen is to invest €61m in the construction of four new service plazas along the E-470 highway in Denver, Colorado in the US.
Applegreen is responsible for the construction, operation and maintenance of the service plazas and will operate the facilities under a 50-year agreement with the E-470 Public Highway Authority.
Each service plaza will include three branded food and beverage outlets, an Applegreen convenience store, fueling infrastructure and EV chargers, as well as seating areas and restrooms.
Applegreen currently operates 113 highway service plazas in the US and is investing $750m to rebuild, remodel and operate 18 highway service plazas in Massachusetts after a recent contract award.
It will also shortly complete a $450m investment programme to upgrade and modernise all 27 service plazas on the New York State Thruway.
Applegreen has invested more than €1 billion in the US since it bought its first two sites in New York’s Long Island in 2014, and it is now one of the largest Irish employers in the US.
The company also continues to grow its business in Ireland and in the UK, as part of a €1 billion expansion programme over the next five years.
The Applegreen business currently employs about 16,000 people, including more than 7,000 people in the US. It had a turnover of almost €4 billion last year and serves about 180 million customers annually.
Applegreen opened its first service station in Ballyfermot in Dublin in 1992 and now operates almost 200 locations in the Irish market.
“We are delighted to be partnering with E-470 on this exciting new project, which extends our footprint in the US, and will bring world-class roadside hospitality facilities to travellers in Colorado,” Applegreen chief executive Joe Barrett said.
“We are investing $70m to deliver four new state-of-the-art service plazas in Colorado and will begin construction in the coming days. The first new plaza is expected to be operational by the last quarter of 2026, while the other three will come onstream shortly afterwards,” he stated.
“This project has been years in the making and represents a bold new chapter for E-470 and our region,” said Joe Donahue, Executive Director of the E-470 Public Highway Authority.
“We are transforming underutilised infrastructure into something that will directly benefit our customers and communities – by providing services they need today and building in flexibility for the future of travel,” he added.
