Convenience Store & Travel Plaza Design for Tribal Enterprises

Tribal enterprises are some of the most active builders of convenience stores and travel plazas in Oklahoma and across the country. These stores often have two jobs at once: serving the community, and capturing highway traffic that funds other programs. The building has to do both well.

We design these stores with the same eight-step process we use on every project. What changes is everything around the drawings: who approves them, how the work is bid, and how the store's brand is set.

What we design and supply

• Floor plan design. Customer flow from fuel islands to restrooms, food, coolers and checkout.
• Equipment package. Coolers, freezers, food service, shelving, counters and fixtures selected and arranged as one schedule.
• Framing, electrical and refrigeration layouts. Drawings that agree with the equipment package, so the contractor builds what the equipment needs.
• Walk-in coolers, freezers and beer caves. Designed with refrigeration calculations and power requirements.
• Cabinets, shelving, color and graphics. Including a graphics package built around the enterprise's own brand.
• Delivery and installation of the equipment package.

Site work, fuel systems, tanks and general construction are separate scopes, normally handled by the engineers and contractors on your project. We plan the store around their site plan.

Planning around your process

Every tribal enterprise has its own way of approving and procuring a building. Before design starts, it helps to know:

• Who approves the design, and how many review rounds the board or enterprise expects.
• How the work will be bid. Whether design and equipment are one package or separate, and what documents a bid response needs.
• Insurance, bonding and contractor requirements set by the enterprise.
• Local employment or contracting preferences. Many nations have employment rights ordinances or vendor preference rules that apply to construction work. Your procurement office will know which apply.
• Brand standards. Whether the store carries a fuel brand, the enterprise's own brand, or both.

We would rather learn these at the first meeting than at the bid deadline. Tell us how your enterprise works and we will plan the design schedule around it.

Stores that serve members and travelers

Many tribal stores are both the local convenience store and a highway travel plaza. The floor plan has to give regular customers a quick trip while travelers find restrooms, food and fuel checkout without confusion. Our travel center design page covers that layout in detail.

Food service is usually the biggest single decision. A hot food program or a franchise restaurant changes the plumbing, ventilation and traffic plan for the whole building, so it is designed first. See food service build-outs.

Building more than one store

If your enterprise is planning several stores, a shared design standard saves time and money on every one after the first. The floor plan, equipment package and graphics are designed once and adapted to each site. Our multi-store rollouts page explains how that works.

Our work

Our project pages include commercial refrigeration and store fixtures for the Choctaw Nation in Idabel, Oklahoma, along with travel plazas such as Cherokee Travel Plaza and Lakeside Travel Plaza. See them on the projects page.

To start, send us the site location, the store type, the services you want inside and how your enterprise will procure the work. We will tell you what a design package would cover and what we need from you to price it.