Billings Mobil triples its size

For years, Billings Mobil had a 1,200-square-foot convenience store with cracked floor tiles and limited parking spaces.

After a four-month shutdown during construction, Billings Mobil reopened on Oct. 2 as a 3,650-square-foot store with an Amato’s Deli.

There’s a reason the new Billings Mobil resembles a Maplefields convenience store: It’s run by the same company that owns the Maplefields brand. R.L. Vallee Inc. of St. Albans bought Billings Mobil in 2004, and moved to turn the aging, diminutive convenience store into a Maplefields-like complex.

According to Skip Vallee, R.L. Vallee’s chief executive officer, the Billings renovations were long overdue.

“The facility we had before had run its course,” Vallee says. “It was an old building with a lot of operational and maintenance costs. And the restrooms were inadequate.”

Parking was also an issue, causing occasional small-scale traffic jams around Billings’ four gas pumps.

To alleviate the problem, R.L. Vallee pushed its new convenience store back from the road about 20 feet. That resulted in three years’ worth of opposition from Wesco Oil, which owns the Champlain Farms convenience store-gas station directly across Route 100 from Billings.

Wesco appealed Billings’ expansion plan back in 2007, after Waterbury officials had already approved it and state officials were preparing to issue a construction permit.

Because the Billings property lies next to an embankment along Thatcher Brook, Wesco argued that the size and slight relocation of the new building would hurt the environment.

Wesco appealed the decision all the way to state environmental court, but the court ultimately ruled in favor of R.L. Vallee last fall.

Finally approved, Billings began construction of the new building in late May.

The building’s manager, Rick Blake, says the larger space has already paid dividends.

“You can get 20 people in here now without them standing arm-to-arm,” Blake says. “The parking lot flows a lot better. We did some great business out of that little store, and it’s great seeing some of the same people coming back.”

Blake says that, other than having the Amato’s Deli, a national food chain, Billings’ products remain the same. The extra space simply enables the store to stock more of them.

With three times the space, Blake has nearly doubled his staff, from nine to 16 full- or part-time workers. The bigger staff has come in handy, as Blake says business was “hectic” in the first week after reopening. But Blake attributed much of the rush to foliage season, and says it’s too early to get a true gauge on how the renovations will affect business.

Neither Blake nor Skip Vallee would disclose how much the project cost.

Blake has worked at Billings for 31 years. He bought the franchise from Cedric and Judy Billings when they retired 11 years ago, and has been its manager ever since.