A developer wants to build a 2.6-acre travel center with an ARCO gas station, a car wash, and dedicated diesel fueling bays just west of Highway 65 in unincorporated Placer County, positioning it to catch both commuter and heavy-truck traffic near one of the region's busiest corridors. The proposed Sunset Travel Center would sit near Sunset Boulevard and South Loop Road, about two miles south of Thunder Valley Casino Resort, and is designed to accommodate 65-foot trucks with two-axle trailers and fuel tankers.
According to the Sacramento Bee, whose Roseville/Placer County watchdog reporter Nicole Buss first detailed the plans, the project is still in the early stages of Placer County's planning process. The site plan calls for an am/pm mini-mart, restrooms and storage areas, gasoline pumps, a car wash, a separate diesel and truck fueling area, dedicated truck access routes, and space set aside for future electric vehicle charging. County officials told the paper that the Community Development Resource Agency has completed an initial review of the proposal, though no construction date has been set.
Placer County permit records tied to the project, filed under application PLN26-00146, place the site on a South Loop Road parcel identified by APN 017-274-001-000 and owned by the John L. Sullivan Family Limited Partnership, according to county filings tracked through the agency's public permitting portal. The Bee's reporting notes the proposal is on track to be considered at a zoning administrator meeting in early 2027, and if that decision is appealed, it would move to the Planning Commission for further review. The travel center's developer declined to speak with the Bee about the project.
Developer Eyes Late-2027 Construction Start
Separate reporting from the Sacramento Bee identifies the project's developer as Andy Takhar, who envisions the 24-hour Sunset Travel Center including multiple restaurants, fuel bays, and EV chargers, with construction targeted to begin in late 2027 or early 2028. That timeline would put groundbreaking roughly a year after the zoning administrator's expected review, assuming the project clears initial hearings without complications.
The ARCO and am/pm brand network behind the proposed fuel station is owned by BP America and spans more than 900 franchised fuel and convenience locations across five western states, serving an estimated 24 million customers monthly, according to FranchiseHelp. The chain's 24-hour am/pm convenience format dates back to a 1978 launch in Southern California, per the same industry source.
Not the First Fuel Stop Eyed for This Intersection
The Sunset Travel Center wouldn't be the first commercial fueling project floated for this stretch of South Loop Road. Placer County pre-development records from May 2022 show an earlier, separate proposal for a 3.19-acre Maverik gas station and convenience store at the southeast corner of South Loop Road and Sunset Boulevard, according to county meeting minutes. That corridor has increasingly drawn interest from commercial developers as South Loop Road has become a key access route for the area's expanding industrial and warehouse parks.
Any EV charging infrastructure built into the new travel center would also need to satisfy state mandates that took effect this year. California's CALGreen Building Code, under Title 24, Part 11, requires new commercial construction to dedicate up to 20% of parking spaces as EV-capable and to install higher baseline counts of Level 2 chargers starting January 1, 2026, according to the California Building Standards Commission.
Part of a Much Bigger Regional Build-Out
The proposed travel center sits inside the broader 8,497-acre Sunset Area Plan, which Placer County has designed to support up to 34 million square feet of commercial, industrial, and retail space along with more than 8,000 housing units at full build-out, according to Placer County. Part of that plan includes Sacramento State's planned 301-acre Placer Center satellite campus, projected to serve 2,500 students in its first phase and up to 30,000 students at full build-out — a future traffic generator that could add to demand for services like fuel and food along the corridor.
To help pay for the roads and utilities that new development will require, Placer County approved an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District for the Sunset Area and Placer Ranch in July 2025, a mechanism Hoodline previously reported can capture up to $607 million over time across 4,279 acres without raising taxes on existing residents. The district reallocates tax increment growth from new development itself rather than drawing on current property owners.
Highway 65 Already Under Pressure
State Route 65 already carries between 76,800 and 98,000 vehicles daily through the Roseville and Rocklin corridor, functioning as South Placer County's primary freight and commuter link to Interstate 80. That volume has prompted regional transportation officials to act: the Placer County Transportation Planning Agency secured a $22.5 million federal BUILD grant in July 2025 to help fund a $115 million project adding lanes to Highway 65 between Blue Oaks Boulevard and Galleria Boulevard, according to Placer County.
Whether the Sunset Travel Center ultimately breaks ground on the timeline its developer has described will depend on how the project fares once it reaches Placer County's zoning administrator early next year. For now, the proposal remains one of several commercial projects testing how much traveler-services growth this stretch of unincorporated Placer County can absorb as the wider Sunset Area Plan moves toward build-out.
