“Sorry We Close” said a handwritten sign on the door of the Westgate BP. One of those increasingly rare gas stations with a repair shop, it had also been a popular stop for people needing a U-Haul truck on the west side. As he graciously saved a customer money on a last-minute rental recently, the station operator, a soft-spoken Middle Easterner, explained that he’d added vehicle rentals in an attempt to keep ahead of the building’s rising rent.

Apparently that rent caught up with him. The station’s parking area is currently used for storage by the crews rebuilding Jackson Road–and planted out front is an artist’s rendering of the large new brick and plate-glass minimall that will replace the station. Jim Chaconas, who brokered the deal, says he doesn’t know who the former operator was, but says the new building “will be a five-thousand-square-foot retail center with two or three tenants and a drive-thru on the west side”–but no gas. Likely tenants are “coffee shops, restaurants, and phone stores.”