A LARGE MOUND OF DIRT on 54 acres at 1735 Troy Pike, located north of the Bluegrass Parkway, is where a gas station and convenience store/quick-serve restaurant will be built in the first phase of a planned mixed-use development, where apartments and townhouses are also planned. (Photo by Bob Vlach)

By Bob Vlach

Woodford Sun Staff

Grading work is ongoing at the site of a future mixed-use development at 1735 Troy Pike, located north of Bluegrass Parkway.

A gas station and convenience store/quick-serve restaurant will be constructed in the first phase of development on the 54.147-acre site. A dimensional variance was approved in December 2024 for a 6,400 square-foot Wawa convenience store/restaurant building to be constructed on one lot in the development.

Development plans approved in November 2024 by the Versailles-Midway-Woodford County Planning Commission also included a residential community with 220 one- and two-bedroom apartments and townhouse units.

Before approving the plans submitted by developer Dennis Anderson (Anderson Troy Pike, LLC), concerns about traffic in south Versailles were raised by commissioners.

“Traffic is bad, and it’s going to get worse, especially when you get off the parkway,” said Chad Wells.

With a new high school and middle school coupled with the subdivisions in that area, “the traffic is going to triple,” said Randal Bohannon. “I like the development, but the biggest thing is the traffic.”

In addition to Anderson agreeing to pay the costs of adding a traffic signal and turn lanes in response to mounting traffic concerns in that area of Versailles, his attorney Dick Murphy told the commission, “This is not going to be built overnight. We’re giving you this plat and this traffic relating to all 16 lots, but it’s probably going to be a build-out of about five to 10 years on this project.”

The property at 1735 Troy Pike was rezoned B-5 (highway business interchange) in 2014 when a Walmart Supercenter was proposed there. That development plan generated a lot of community discussion and did not move forward.

“It’s not that big box development that you saw before,” said Murphy during the November 2024 meeting. “We’re a much less intense development than that.”