Frequently Asked Questions

We don’t have a shortage of entry level gas station, retail or restaurant jobs. In fact, everyone is hiring. The job argument is great for small failing rural towns with no jobs. The posted wages are averages as most hires do not come in at the peak wage. They have such a high turnover rate that they have to lure people by posting “wages” outside their business. Buc-ees has been in court often for suing employees that tried to quit. 

Buc-ees has one of the lowest employee ratings than other retail businesses. According to Glassdoor reviews as of writing this, they have a 2.6 out of 5 rating and only 28% of Buc-ees employees would recommend the job to a friend. Compare that to Kwik Trip’s rating of 3.8 out of 5 and 77% of employees would recommend it, you can see there are far better service jobs in Oak Creek.

You can’t ignore the impacts. This all has long term consequences that are detrimental to the future of the city. I know people really like this gas station and it is probably great when it is developed in the right areas. They started out in rural towns and that’s where they thrive. However, their business does not fit into urban and suburban cities. We are in the Milwaukee-Chicago hub. The traffic will be astronomical. Beyond “sold out concert traffic” – with 13k-20k cars every single day all competing for less than 600 public parking spaces (6 times the traffic of IKEA with 1/2 of the parking spaces) The numbers are reported by the developer are not an exaggeration.

They could develop 20-30 miles down the road in the Kenosha and Bristol area and while it would still be an ecological catastrophe and create subpar jobs, it would have less impact on communities and Wisconsin would still get the sales tax.

Over 10 million gallons of water from Lake Michigan will be used every year to run the Buc’ees car washes and over 100 toilets as well as the same amount of sewage.

There are currently 7 gas stations within 1.2 miles of the proposed Buc-ees, 2 stations on 7 Mile Road and 5 gas stations around 27th and Ryan.

On January 23, The Mayor of the City of Oak Creek was interviewed on local TV stations and in print media that “Buc-ees was coming to town”. The first notice to the neighborhood of 100+ residents that Buc-ees was coming was seeing it on TV a few days prior to the Public City Planning Meeting on January 28th. Every story that covered this announcement was presented in the media as a done deal.

The owner of Storybrook Farms wasn’t even notified until he approached surveyors at the site and told him the city was building a Buc-ees next to his farm.

Zoning should only be changed to promote balanced development. Zoning laws are designed to facilitate orderly growth, protecting public resources (Root River) and fostering a positive environment for residents. It does not allow any corporation to build whatever they want, wherever they want to build. 

A Buc-ees will actually cost Oak Creek tax payers money. The sales tax does go to the state and county. Per Ken Gehl, the alderman for this district, “Potential property tax revenue on Buc-ees is substantially below our normal target for development, and it’s just not useful in close proximity to a thriving neighborhood”. Which is why he voted “no” on this at the common council meeting.

The projected business park would have brought in more money to the city. What will actually happen is that home values close to Bucees will depreciate (residential property owners in the area bring in well over a million each year). As a result of depreciation, Oak Creek won’t be able to make their projected budget and ALL Oak Creek property owners will have another increase in tax levy to make up for the shortfall. They already need to increase the tax levy to fix the existing roads. If you reference the Common Council meeting in February, this doesn’t even address the need for increased police and fire, and road infrastructure as local roads will fail with 3.65 million additional cars per year just to Bucees (based on their low-ball estimate of 10k per day). This doesn’t even include the water and sewage systems being taxed as tens of millions of gallons of Lake Michigan water being consumed with 100 flushing toilets and one of the largest car washes in the United States and tens of millions of sewage going to Oak Creek Water Treatment Facility.

 Yes, in 2022 the City of Oak Creek rejected a request to add the gas station saying Oak Creek did not need another gas station. We aren’t sure why their attitude changed so drastically.

Potential home buyers and home builders rely on zoning and Comp land use plans to make informed decisions on where they will purchase their homes. The land was planned to be a residential area for several decades. That is why the neighborhood was built here. The Elm exit was just created in the last few years. The comp land use plan was updated to business park. Seemed reasonable. And no one contested those changes. Now on March 18th the city changed the zoning to B6 which is for high intensity commercial and also amended the comp land use plan to commercial. This was a major change without any concern for the residential areas or businesses long 27th Street and Oakwood in both Oak Creek and Franklin.

No they did not.  In fact, the City of Oak Creek is relying on Buc-ees Consultant to conduct their own traffic study which does not include Oakwood Road or traffic along 27th Street?

Per Buc-ees 90% or more of the traffic would be coming off Elm Street.  Since the first public hearing, they have now amended that to 85% but have not factored in any previous traffic studies from Franklin or DOT when Saputo Cheese was built or additional Industrial Park development