Fifteen: Cactus & Tropicals Buys a Gas Station

1994

After shaking President Clinton’s hand, having lunch with Governor Leavitt, and sharing my office (basically a potting shed) with the Secretary of the United States Treasury, Lloyd Bentsen, I confess I was feeling bumptious. “Bumptious” is a word I came across while searching for a synonym for “cocky.” It means annoyingly assertive, but the tone of it isn’t quite so harsh. I must have been going through a dumb spell, too. I mean, what was I thinking? Dumb and bumptious—what a deadly combination.

My grave mistake was opening a store in Park City. I was offered a space in a strip mall located in a part of town known as the Design Center. Park City was booming, and I thought people building homes and businesses there would like a plant store in the neighborhood. I was wrong. Customers told me they loved coming into the greenhouses in Salt Lake, where they did most of their shopping anyway.

It didn’t take long to see the Park City shop wasn’t going to make it. It never really took flight. I spent a ton of money on building out the space, exterior signage (to the mall owner’s specifications), a security deposit, the first and last month’s rent, and endless other expenses. It had been my MO to leap before I looked, but this was ridiculous. And it didn’t fit the business plan that was slowly forming instructive concepts in my mind—including instructions to focus on the property I owned now, to make it more profitable. I wasn’t feeling bumptious when I took a more clear-eyed look at my losses and closed the Park City store. I felt embarrassed.

I was anxious to settle down with The Garden Wall and the greenhouses again. There had been so much commotion and change, I was looking forward to some calm and consistency. Standing at the potting bench in my Levi’s and getting dirt under my fingernails was always restorative. But it wasn’t in the stars. Another venture lay ahead and I had to run to catch it.

On the corner of Twenty-seventh South and Twentieth East, next to the property I had just purchased from Sherrill, was a Pyramid Oil gas station. I was in my office when the owner of the gas station paid me a visit. I’d never met her before. I thought the place was owned by a guy named Wayne, because he ran the auto repair shop in the garage. Come to think of it, the gas station didn’t pump gas. She introduced herself and told me she was on a fishing expedition.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said.

The bait was delicious, salty and sweet. She explained Wayne’s lease was up and her family wanted to sell the property. Did I want to buy it?

Given my experience with eminent domain, my heart went out to Wayne. I thought I knew exactly how he must be feeling. I thought if he’d been told his lease wouldn’t be renewed, he was feeling pretty bad. I walked over to talk to him and was surprised to see he was one happy mechanic. He’d known for a while he had to move. He already had a place to go that was practically kitty-corner from his current location. It was called Chuck’s. He was about to sign the new lease and was looking forward to moving. What a load off my heart and mind.

The size of this property was different from the three adjoining lots I owned. The property lines followed the pioneer irrigation ditches that jigged and jogged through the neighborhood. For some reason to do with the ditch, this lot was twenty-five feet deeper and ten feet wider than my other lots. The shape of it couldn’t be more perfect. The extra depth provided room for more parking and a new delivery entrance on Twenty-seventh South. Up until now, delivery trucks and our own vehicles had competed with customer parking. And the extra width made room for one more greenhouse to be attached for a Shipping and Receiving Department.

Retail businesses benefit from a corner location. Whoever coined the phrase “location, location, location” was right, but for a retail business, there are three equally important words: visibility, visibility, visibility. Owning the corner would be stupendous for Cactus & Tropicals. We could add landscape plants to our interior plant inventory: trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials, maybe even Christmas trees. Our corner fencing would be open to expose pergolas, arbors, and a gazebo. Lots of color, lots of greenery, lots of beauty, maybe even a koi pond; it would change the entire corner.

When I told Richard about the invitation from Pyramid Oil, he buried his face in his hands and hung his head. Oh, no, I thought, this isn’t good. I expected him to come up exasperated with me, possibly spitting mad. Instead, he was smiling. He said something forceful like, let’s do this thing!

As it turned out, the negotiations weren’t as complicated as I’d feared. The Pyramid Oil people knew they had a white elephant on their hands. They weren’t looking to make a fortune on selling the property so much as to get rid of it. There was little negotiation on the price and no negotiation when it came to who would demolish the building, clear the property, and be responsible for the necessary environmental studies and/or clean up. While the loan and purchase were dependent on the land being pollution free, neither the bank nor the SBA would have any part of the work or the cost. I imagine the Pyramid Oil people knew it was their responsibility, and the work had to be done no matter who the buyer was, so they got started.

The gas station was built around 1945, giving the tanks a full fifty years to rust and seep ethyl gasoline down Twenty-seventh South. The auto repair pit and rack system in Wayne’s garage could have environmental issues too. The property was surrounded by a chain-link fence, and pipes and vents and various scientific looking devices were punched in the ground. A lot of people were betting the tanks had failed, but I put all my hopes on a clean bill of health from the soil tests. It was an agonizing wait! If the property failed to pass the breathalyzer tests, I’d have a toxic waste field next to my garden center. That would be an oxymoron, twisted logic, or in any case, really bad.

Thank the stars, the soil was clean! With a little nitrogen, we could grow potatoes. The minute I got word we were good to go, I called Stu and asked him to come out from Denver. I called Stuppy Greenhouse Company and ordered a truckload of pipe and plastic. I started working on a proper fence and new signage for the corner. Cactus & Tropicals had taken a giant leap—and I’d actually looked first.