Excerpt from Daytona Beach News Journal on Daytona Beach Area 7-11 Gas Stations:
“7-Eleven built three gas station/convenience stores last year in the region and plans three more this year, company spokeswoman Margaret Chabris said. The company is in an expansion mode because property values are depressed, landlords are accommodating quality tenants and shoppers still seek convenience.
Owning or operating a gas station/convenience store is not an easy business, said Jim Nefferdorf, a sales agent with Gas Stations USA, a Daytona Beach-based service station real estate broker with more than 100 listings on its website, 18 of which are in Volusia and Flagler counties.
“More often than not, the reason a station fails is in the operation, how it’s run,” Nefferdorf said. “Some locations do fail. Like some people bought homes they could not afford, some people bought a business they could not afford or lacked the knowledge to run. It cannot be run as an absentee business.”
Despite the rash of empty stations, an improving economy has sparked more activity in gas station real estate during the past six months, Nefferdorf said.
APEC reopened a closed Sunoco in Orange City six months ago after storage tanks were exchanged. McKnight also said the Shell station at LPGA and Clyde Morris boulevards in Daytona Beach should reopen in a couple of weeks with a new tenant, along with a Dunkin Donuts in the convenience store.”