The Cleveland Metroparks today announced a partnership with Buc-ee’s, the Texas travel center chain, to bring Ohio’s third announced location to the North Coast. “This is a once in a lifetime public-private partnership,” said a Metroparks spokesperson. “We are thrilled to bring Buc-ee’s onto Edgewater Beach.”

“95% of visitors arrive to Edgewater by car, so this massive travel center is filling a huge need. You’ll be able to get your gas, flipflops, frisbees, and everything else you’ll need to enjoy the fifty feet of beach that’s left,” said a Buc-ees representative.

Notable Buc-ee’s include their Tennessee location, which serves as a gateway to the Smokey Mountains, and their flagship, 75,000 sq. ft location south of Austin, Texas. Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne emphasized this new Edgewater location is just as much of a landmark, “The Shoreway is Cleveland’s Route 66, and Edgewater is Cleveland’s Smokey Mountains.”

Preparing the site for the hundreds of new gas pumps will require closing the beach, starting in mid-April through about late September. The willow tree is marked with a big red “X” to indicate where the diesel pumps are going.

Buc-ee’s will be constructing facilities using the rest of the Metroparks on-hand levy revenue. “We need to emphasize that this is a public-private partnership, which sounds smart, automatically making it good.”

Protestors of the project say eliminating the park space for the travel center doesn’t make any sense, “This is our only place in town to have fun in the sun before returning to our natural state of being sad in the snow.”