The TravelCenters operation, based in Nashville, TN, is a holding of Tulsa, OK-headquartered Williams Co., owner of more than 27,000 miles of coast-to-coast energy pipelines, some 30,000 miles of communications lines and assets in excess of $25 billion. By the first week of April, company officials say 69 locations, primarily from-the-ground up projects, in 23 states will be open under the TravelCenters' banner. The Ft. Worth project, situated along Interstate 35W at Alliance, is due to deliver March 27. Another 30 to 40 new locations in the coast-to-coast, border-to-border rollout strategy are in the pipeline, all due to come on line by 2003, Steve Ramer, Williams' vice president of real estate, tells GlobeSt.com. The current portfolio consists of 46 company-owned locations.

"Our company goal is to be one of the top three fuel marketers in the country," Ramer says of the plan that hit the drawing boards about two years ago when its predecessor company, Mapco Travel Centers, sold the operation to Williams.

To help fund the bid, Williams is selling 198 Mapco Express convenience stores, primarily in the Memphis and Nashville areas to Durham, NC-based Convenience USA Inc. The sale will be finalized this quarter.

Each TravelCenter is strategically placed along interstate highways running north, east, south and west and connecting the nation's most extreme land points. The centers are being positioned 200 to 300 miles apart. But key to the appeal has been a design evolution based on the belief that the trucking industry is more high tech than ever. The Ft. Worth TravelCenter is patterned after a prototype that opened last year in Oklahoma City. A network of underground fiber optics support interior high-tech kiosks where drivers, truckers and motorists alike, have high-speed Internet access for their IT traveling bag of personal accessories. The new TravelCenter amenities--from IT connections to big-screen TVs in lounges--is being done, says Ramer, "to meet the times and meet the demands of today's drivers."

The Waco TravelCenter had been the first to come on line in early 2000 under the new program, but it is absent the high-tech amenities. Ramer says Williams had bought the under-construction property from a developer who had been struggling to bring it to fruition. But, he says, that will be the only one in the rollout without the fiber-optic support system.

Come April, Williams will meet its goals for Interstate 40 and Interstate 10, while continuing land searches for the required 12- to 15-acre parcels in and around interstates servicing Minneapolis-St. Paul, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Des Moines, Laredo and Waco. The company's most recent focus is Interstate 55, which stretches from New Orleans to Chicago, reveals Ramer. Meanwhile, Williams has tentative options on land in and around Springfield, IL. All Interstate 81 locations will be up and running by midyear while Williams' has just capped its TravelCenter goals for Interstates 75, 90 and 65.