Designed to belong on Chinden from day one
The Eddy family has run convenience stores in the Treasure Valley since 1989, and they’ve never built them the standard way. They over-light their sites so customers feel safe after dark. They pick canopy fixtures for how they look on the property, not for what they cost. In April 2026, Convenience Store News named the business a 2026 Outstanding Independents Award winner, recognizing a single independent store holding its own against national chains.
So, when the family returned to Meridian on the former Wagner Farms property at Chinden Boulevard and Ten Mile Road, the design followed that instinct. The 12,000-square-foot market takes its cues from the farmland it sits on rather than from a fuel brand’s prototype.
A barn, not a box
A broad gabled roof with a glazed cupola carries most of the building’s presence, over white board-and-batten and shingle siding set on a stone base. Heavy timber columns and knee braces support a porch that wraps the entry and storefront elevations, deep enough to hold café tables and shade the glass behind them. Upper-wall windows bring daylight into the sales floor. The result reflects the agricultural edge of the Chinden corridor rather than a national fuel brand’s standard kit.
Inside, the space feels open. A vaulted ceiling exposes dark beams against corrugated metal decking, with spiral ductwork left visible rather than furred out, and large-diameter fans and pendant fixtures suspended from the roof structure. Wood-look flooring runs from the entry past a center checkout island to a full-length glass-door cooler along the back wall. An Earl of Sandwich counter with its own prep kitchen anchors the food service side, next to a fountain and frozen drink station and a hot-food case. Even the restrooms are finished spaces, with black marble-look tile, a trough lavatory, and a reclaimed-wood-framed mirror, which matters for an operator whose stores have taken Chevron’s Gold Award for cleanliness in consecutive years.
Where the engineering hours went
Convenience stores read as simple buildings; they are not. This one runs on systems the owner buys directly: point of sale, phone and data, security and alarm, music, the fuel system itself, soda fountains, and CO2. None of those vendors work for the architect, and every one of their requirements must appear correctly in the construction documents before a permit is issued. Because the site already carried an approved development plan, the work also began with a Design Review modification through City of Meridian Planning and Zoning.
CSHQA provided architecture, mechanical (HVAC and plumbing), and electrical engineering in-house, with structural engineering by STRUX Engineering, coordinating the client-retained scopes alongside site civil, landscape, fuel systems design, and a Chevron fuel canopy delivered by others.
The result
The single-story, wood-framed store sits on 2.2 acres with 43 parking stalls and 16 Chevron fueling positions, at a construction value of approximately $2.9 million. It opened in May 2025, roughly 14 months after schematic design began.
CSHQA designs retail and fuel center projects across the Treasure Valley and beyond, with licensed professionals to meet our clients’ needs across the nation.
