Delaware Center Reopens With APUs, Web Access

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The newly remodeled service center on Interstate 95 in Delaware has reopened with 50 truck parking spaces equipped with new electrification hook-up stations for auxiliary power units and Internet access.

The center reopened June 28 after being closed for 10 months for construction.

Featuring fueling pumps, a convenience store and an array of restaurants, the center is located just north of the Maryland state line and just south of Wilmington between exits 1 and 3 in the short stretch of I-95 that runs through Delaware.

HMSHost Corp. operates the center with Sunoco Inc. operating the fueling station, a situation that drew fire from Natso, the national organization of truck-stop operators and travel plazas.

“Contrary to claims that the facility will serve as an economic tool generating jobs and state revenue,” Natso President Lisa Mullings said in a press release, “the Delaware Travel Center represents nothing more than a monopoly that threatens to cripple the many businesses offering food, fuel and other retail services near the I-95 exit interchanges.”

Mullings said the state has “grossly exaggerated the benefits” of the state’s new 35-year agreement with the private operator and failed to reveal the downside where local businesses lose money.

Natso has renewed its battle against privately operated rest areas on the nation’s interstate highway system as several states, facing budget shortfalls, closed highway rest areas.

The states, including Arizona and New Jersey, have said they are exploring the possibility of leasing their facilities to private operators.

Turning the facilities over to private operators, however, would require changes in federal law. Under legislation governing the federal highway system, private operators were barred from running facilities on interstates.

Exceptions were made when the law was written to govern existing arrangements in Delaware, on the New Jersey Turnpike and elsewhere.

“This welcome center is a great example of how the private and public sectors can work together to achieve common economic goals,” Gov. Jack Markell (D) said in a written statement from HMSHost about the reopening.

The Delaware facility has been in the hands of private operators since it opened in 1964, said Michael Williams, spokesman for the Dela-ware Department of Transportation.

Under its contract with HMSHost, the state DOT is to receive a percentage of the facility’s sales revenue, which at a minimum must be $1.6 million annually to the state, Williams said.

According to HMSHost, the firm’s renovations at the Delaware center cost $35 million. The center is open 24 hours a day.

Williams said he did not know how many truck parking spaces were at the center before the renovation but that the remodeling added more.

Delaware only has one other rest area for truckers, in Smyrna in the center of the state at Routes 1 and 13, Williams said, but its parking is much smaller and it has only rest rooms, vending machines and picnic tables.

Besides the 50 anti-idling electric hookups for trucks, the center includes infrastructure for car electrification stations that can be added when electric cars come into wider use, HMSHost said.

The APU hookups are supplied by CabAire LLC, a subsidiary of Control Module Inc. in Enfield, Conn.