The southern end of Bowling Green will soon be home to a 26-acre mixed use development that will house restaurants, office and living space and the community’s first Wawa store location.

Dubbed Evergreen Commons, the site is being developed by the KOIN Group, headed by Andy Shultz. It will sit on a plot of land nestled between Nasco and Bobcat of Bowling Green just a stones throw away from the Interstate 165 exit onto Nashville Road, a site that in another life was a mobile home park.

Renderings of the area show the Wawa location at the front of the property facing Nashville Road. This will be the first Wawa location in Bowling Green, opening up before another location now being built near the National Corvette Museum.

Shultz told the Daily News he expects construction on the Wawa location to begin soon.

“I would suspect, in the next few months, it’ll start rolling over there,” Shultz said. “They’re not going to want to let it sit too long.”

Wawa, a chain of convenience stores which got its start in the northeast United States, currently operates more than 1,000 stores across the country.

The closest Wawa location to Bowling Green is 206 miles away in Cincinnati. Though the company does not currently operate any stores in Kentucky, plans are in place to open up to 40 locations in the commonwealth over the next 10 years.

Typical Wawa locations normally measure around 5,000 square feet. The Daily News reported last fall that Wawa came first in the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey for convenience stores, with a score of 82 out of 100. For reference, Buc-ee’s scored an 80 out of 100.

Wawa previously identified the Bowling Green location near Exit 28 as its first site in the city. Shultz said the location in Evergreen Commons will instead become the company’s main spot in town.

“I think what they saw is just the traffic and the growth and all the stuff going out here,” he said. “There’s nothing like it on this end of town.”

Going deeper inside the site will sit the Lookout, a collection of three buildings that will be home to restaurants and some mixed-use space. This area is expected to occupy 6.25 acres of the 26-acre project and will provide up to 42,000 square feet of leasable space, according to Evergreen Commons’ website.

Shultz said “in some capacity,” up to four eateries could be housed in the Lookout inside two, 7,000 square-foot buildings.

Though specifics cannot be shared now, Shultz said one restaurant has been secured.

“The ones that we’re meeting with currently are sit-down type restaurants, which are not even out in that area currently,” he said.

Situated behind the restaurant building is a two-story mixed use building, measuring a combined 26,601 square feet.

Shultz said the second story is being eyed primarily for corporate office space. Shultz said the ground floor will likely be used differently.

“We could do office space too, but it could be for shopping, it could be for gyms … ,” he said. “ … We have a lot of interest (for) different concepts for that.”

At the back of the development sits the Cedar Point Apartments. These are being built separately by a different developer, but Shultz said once finished the project will consist of 112 multi-family housing units spread across six three-story buildings.

As for a project timeline, the KOIN Group is expecting staggered completions for the projects. Shultz estimates Wawa will finish up in under a year, with the Lookout finishing up next summer if all goes to plan.

He estimates that by the end of Q2 next year, everything will be finished.

Shultz, who owns the building housing Q Coffee Emporium on Waterbury Court, said that building was constructed to bring a more “modern, hipper” architectural style to the area, and spoke on the reason for building Evergreen Commons.

“What we wanted to do out there is kind of the same thing,” he said. “We wanted to bring something that’s not currently in Bowling Green.”