LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — A Lawrenceville lot where rental RVs still sit won approval this week to become a Costco, with a new road and turn lanes planned for traffic neighbors already call bad.
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The Lawrenceville mayor and City Council unanimously approved the warehouse store this week along Highway 316.
City Manager Chuck Warbington said many shoppers here now drive to Costcos near the Mall of Georgia and Gwinnett Place Mall.
“It meets a need for our community for food and low-cost groceries as the economy is today,” Warbington said.
Nathan Smith lives a mile or two from the site.
“The traffic is going to just be a nightmare,” Smith said. “We’ve been in Gwinnett County now for 25 years, and they have a county that was built for 400,000 people that now has a million.”
A city staff report estimates about 7,000 car trips in and out of the site each day. The plan puts a 158,000-square-foot warehouse, 854 parking spaces and a gas station on about 20 acres, the report says.
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Warbington said Costco completed a 600-page study of nearby intersections.
“We need to make sure we’re thinking well ahead of what traffic may be coming because we’ve seen the traffic concerns at other Costcos,” Warbington said.
He said entrances off Buford Drive and Collins Hill Road will split the traffic. Costco will build a connector road at its own cost, and the city will add turn lanes and retime signals, he said.
Another resident, Taylor Smith, still supports the store.
“New opportunities, new jobs, new places to shop instead of having to go all the way to Buford; now it’s right here,” Taylor said.
Costco still has to acquire the land from the city, which Warbington said will take six to 12 months.
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