Oriental Rugs make way for new gas station

Posted on May 5, 2016 By Editor Articles, San Jose, San Marco, St. Nicholas

Rugs and other debris were loaded into trucks April 6 as a worker sprays the site of the former Oriental Rug House with water to keep down the dust as First Coast Energy demolished several buildings on Hendricks Avenue in preparation for building a new Daily’s Dash location.

April 6, 2016 signaled the end of an era for Oriental Rug House, a fixture on the east side stretch of Hendricks Avenue between Dunkin’ Donuts and Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church. A large track hoe and several industrial dumpsters were engaged to clear the property of trees and buildings on the three parcels, which had been longtime home to the rug store, and its neighbor, Big City Detailing, Inc., as well as a small cottage and storage shed in the rear of the property.

In business for 25 years, ORH owner Chaman Samuel and his son, Asef, were forced to close their location in December 2015 after their landlord, Chase Properties, sold the trapezoid-shaped property at 3973-3975 Hendricks Avenue to First Coast Energy. The new owner plans to build a new Daily’s Dash gas station and convenience store across the street from a similar Gate gas station and convenience store on the thoroughfare between San Marco and Mandarin.

The new Daily’s will be designed to have eight double-sided fuel pumps – two each on four under-canopy fuel islands – and an approximately 5,000-square-foot convenience store, which will include Dash food service operations, said Andrew Keith Daw, an attorney for First Coast Energy, in an email.

Construction is scheduled to begin in early May with the store expected to be opened in the early fall, he said.

First Coast Energy had acquired the Hendricks Avenue property in December 2015 from Chase Properties through a tax-free exchange with NSHE Hendricks LLC of Tempe, Arizona, which served as an intermediary for the purpose of tax treatment, Daw said in January. With the new location, the company intends to serve the north-south traffic pattern and San Marco, he said.

The new gas station will be the second First Coast Energy has built in the San Marco area within a year. In January, the Jacksonville-based energy company opened another location in East San Marco on Atlantic Boulevard near I-95. That station is meant to serve the east-west traffic pattern entering San Marco from the Overland Expressway and St. Nicholas.

The Samuels cleared out their ORH store and placed their rug inventory into storage, said job site superintendent Dennis Smigelsky of C & R Contractors, which is part of First Coast Energy. He said the rug merchants told him they had not yet found a new location or decided what to do.

By Marcia Hodgson
Resident Community News