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Wawa doubling its headquarters (Update)

Wawa Inc. is doubling the size of its headquarters complex, at the former estate of the founding Wood family, Red Roof, in Chester Heights, Pa.

(Adds comments from Wawa) After workers started pouring concrete last spring, crews have been hanging iron this summer in the woods south of U.S. 1 in Chester Heights, west of Media, where Wawa Inc. is more than doubling the size of its headquarters complex, around the gray stone house Wawa calls Red Roof.

By that time, Wawa had already expanded beyond the original Quaker-sober, gray-stone, two-story-plus-dormers Red Roof house to add three one-story structures about the size of Wawa stores, "hipped roofs and all," Jacobs says. "Wawa wanted to expand underground, but it was too expensive. So we renovated that space and did a master plan," adding a 50,000-square-foot modern addition in 1999.

Through the 2000s, as Wawa became a major gasoline retailer, doubled its store network, and began laying plans for Florida expansion, Wawa added support staff in rented space, up the hill at the former Franklin Mint.  In 2012, "we started looking at how to renovate these facilities, and their expansion needs. We looked at the master plan. They said, 'Let's bring everyone back to Wawa,' " Jacobs recalled.

The problem: how to fit everything around Red Roof, keeping it as the corporate symbol? Wood family members no longer run Wawa day-to-day operations, but they remain major owners, alongside the company's employee stock-ownership program and current and former managers.

Photo: JacobsWyper Architects

They added parking for 420 cars. For transit riders, Septa says it will extend the Media-Elwyn train line (via 30th Street and University City) to the planned Wawa station south of the property by 2020. Planners in neighboring Chester County hope Septa will eventually rebuild commuter service to West Chester.