A staff-level committee in Graham has given the go-ahead to a new convenience store that a Maryland-based chain proposes to build at the juncture of South Main and Moore streets.
The city’s technical review committee signed off on this project last month, clearing the way for Dash-In, a multistate chain born in Annapolis, to break ground on a 5,697 square foot store at 1137 South Main Street, along with a complement of gas pumps and a car wash.
The company behind this particular project may be unfamiliar to some area residents. Dash-In is nevertheless an established brand in the mid-Atlantic region, where it claims to be “redefining the local convenience store experience” with fresh food, hot coffee, and high-quality gas. The company has also been keen to get customers to “splash in” to its car washes, which it bills as “eco-friendly” and “chemical free.”
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Since its foundation in 1979, Dash-In has set up more than 50 convenience stores in Virginia, Delaware, and its home state. In recent years, the company has set its sights on North Carolina, with the city of Graham being among the first spots it has marked out for potential expansion.
The precise site which Dash-In selected for its new store in Graham comprises just over 3 acres of vacant land that the State Employees Credit Union had owned along South Main Street since 2019. The company originally sent Graham’s planning department a set of schematics for this location in the spring of 2024. Although the site itself was already zoned for the company’s intended use, it took over a year and five rounds of revision before the city’s interdepartmental technical review committee agreed to approve the proposal.
[Story continues below layout graphic. Store will be at corner of South Main and Moore streets, across from Sheetz.]
A limited liability corporation affiliated with Dash-In formally purchased the project’s proposed site in July for $1.6 million.
According to the approved plans for this project, the company will develop an engineered drainage basin on the western third of the site. In the meantime, the convenience store will occupy a central location, with a small car wash to the north and fuel island with six pairs of pumps to the east. The project’s plans also depict two entrances into the property – with access from both South Main and Moore streets.
