{"id":5168,"date":"2018-04-29T03:05:26","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T07:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=5168"},"modified":"2018-04-29T03:05:26","modified_gmt":"2018-04-29T07:05:26","slug":"pumped-up-islands-last-remaining-gas-station-reopens-for-the-long-haul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2018\/04\/pumped-up-islands-last-remaining-gas-station-reopens-for-the-long-haul\/","title":{"rendered":"Pumped Up: Island’s Last Remaining Gas Station Reopens for the Long Haul"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kelly's<\/a>

Kelly\u2019s Sea-Bay Sunoco in Lavallette, NJ. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

A day after it reopened for business, customers began tricking back into the entrance at Kelly\u2019s Sea-Bay Sunoco station in Lavallette Friday.<\/p>\n

The reopening came after 44 days of construction to install two new, 10,000 gallon fuel tanks at the station. The task included pumping more than 2.5 million gallons of water from the ground (digging 15-feet into the ground a block from the ocean, on a barrier island, has its challenges) and the collaboration of several work crews as well as help from the borough\u2019s building department. But the story of the new tanks is not so much a story about a gas station, but a significant investment into the Lavallette community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe moved 600 tons of dirt, we added two 10,000 gallon storage tanks, and when we reopened, it was just amazing,\u201d said Kelly, who has owned the station \u2013 the last remaining between Island Beach State Park and Point Pleasant \u2013 for 35 years. Before he purchased the station, it was owned directly by Sunoco Corporation.<\/p>\n

The red-tape horror stories that complicate many similar projects wasn\u2019t an issue in town, and being closed for 44 days has brought the station\u2019s staff and community even closer together, Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Borough of Lavallette\u2019s construction officials were amazing,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cAll they kept telling me was, \u2018we want to help you, we want to get you open.'\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnywhere we went in the last 44 days, every person we met asked when we would reopen,\u201d he continued. \u201cSo we really do think people will appreciate us even more, and we appreciate our customers even more. We missed them and they missed us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kelly's<\/a>

Kelly\u2019s Sea-Bay Sunoco in Lavallette, NJ. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Kelly said he believes the $300,000 investment is well-worth it in Lavallette, where a strong mix of borough residents, local business owners and summer visitors have forged the type of relationship that is one rarely seen since the mom-and-pop service stations of the past began to close. As Shorebeat was taking a few photos, a van from Garden State Modular Homes, a dedicated commercial customer, pulled up, with the company\u2019s owner expressing his congratulations to Kelly \u2013 and filling up his tank.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny because you can\u2019t see it \u2013 everything I did is underground, right there,\u201d Kelly said, pointing to a construction project whose only signs are fresh concrete in the tank area.<\/p>\n

For Kelly, the best part about reopening is welcoming his customers back and getting things back to normal around the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very used to keeping the station super-clean, and it was difficult for me to work in dirt and dust, hammering and concrete all around, every day,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI was so happy to plant flowers today, sweep up and get the place clean.\u201d \u2022<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

BONUS: The interesting history of Kelly\u2019s Sea-Bay Sunoco station<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pew family \u2013 the wealthy owners of Sunoco, also known as the Sun Oil Company of Philadelphia \u2013 decided to build a summer home in Mantoloking in the 1930s. Their preferred method of travel: a sea plane from Philadelphia to the island. The trip in was easy, but there was nowhere to fill the plane for its trek back to the city. So, naturally, a Sunoco station popped up nearby.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThey would have people bring gas cans back up to their sea plane so they could fly back,\u201d said Kelly, 60, who landed his first job at the station as a teenager, pumping gas.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back then, he said, he was interested in becoming an architect after some inspiration from mechanical design teachers at his high school. But the summer job at Sunoco offered a unique perk: being around cars, and with the help of a neighbor who restored and customized vehicles, Kelly soon learned the tricks of the mechanic trade.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read the entire article on the station\u2019s history here.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A day after it reopened for business, customers began tricking back into the entrance at Kelly\u2019s Sea-Bay Sunoco station in Lavallette Friday. The reopening came after 44 days of construction to install two new, 10,000 gallon fuel tanks at the station. The task included pumping more than 2.5 million gallons of water from the ground […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,2],"tags":[1082,29,1341],"class_list":["post-5168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-lavallette","tag-kellys-sea-bay-sunoco","tag-lavallette-nj-news","tag-new-tank"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_4239.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-1lm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}