GoMart has purchased the former Kmart site at 6000 MacCorkle Avenue SE and announced plans to demolish the building and replace it with a travel plaza. No plans have been filed. No permits have been issued. The decisions that shape this project have not yet been made — but they will be made soon.
In early April 2026, GoMart Inc. purchased the long-vacant former Kmart property on MacCorkle Avenue SE through a private online auction. The company has publicly stated its intent to demolish the existing building and construct a travel plaza — a highway truck-stop format with heavy-truck fueling, overnight parking, and 24-hour operation — in a neighborhood that sits directly adjacent to homes, schools, and small businesses.
The City of Charleston has indicated that current zoning on the parcel would accommodate a travel plaza, which means the project is not expected to require a rezoning vote. That doesn't mean there's no public process — site plan review, stormwater review, a WVDOH access permit for the curb cut on US Route 60, and demolition and environmental permits all remain ahead. Each of those steps is an opportunity for neighbors to be heard.
A long-haul travel plaza is a land use built for an interstate exit, not for a dense, walkable residential neighborhood. Residents have real and specific concerns:
We are not anti-development. We are asking for a project that fits its surroundings.
That means working with GoMart, the City, and WVDOH to push for a scaled, neighborhood-appropriate use of the site — a convenience store and gas station without long-haul truck parking and overnight idling, with real landscaped buffers, limited lot lighting, and traffic design that protects our residential streets. Or a different redevelopment altogether: mixed-use, medical, small retail that matches the MacCorkle corridor the City's own comprehensive plan envisions.
We will work through every appropriate channel — public comments at site plan review, engagement with the Planning Department, the WVDOH access permit review, direct meetings with GoMart leadership, and the Kanawha City Community Association — to make sure the neighborhood's voice is in the room when decisions are made.
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