Business Community

Entrepreneur sells Pt. Fosdick Drive gas station and mart for $7.75 million

Gas station mini-marts are ubiquitous and may seem interchangeable. But for a distinct circle of entrepreneurs, they are the building blocks by which family empires are built and fortunes made.

The recent sale of the Sinclair gas station and store at 5006 Point Fosdick Drive illustrates their role in building generational wealth.

The business, and the .67 acres it sits on, changed hands late last month for $7.75 million. That’s the second-highest dollar value real estate transaction in Gig Harbor this year, according to Seattle’s Daily Journal of Commerce, behind the $73 million sale of The Lodge at Mallard’s Landing in July.

The price tag represents a tidy 150 percent increase over the $3.1 million that Port Orchard resident Dev Singh Sall paid for the gas station and mini-mart just nine years ago. The run-up reflects the high-visibility location at the corner of Point Fosdick and Olympic drives, as well as a strong local market for this type of property.

Dev Singh Sall of Port Orchard sold the Sinclair gas station at 5006 Point Fosdick Drive for $7.75 million, a 150% increase from the $3.1 million he bought it for nine years ago. The buyers are Amrinderpal and Dharm Khinda, who own 13 properties in the region. Photo by Ted Kenney

It also results from investments and decisions made over nearly a decade of ownership by Sall and his parents, who are also his business partners. Chief among these was the choice to rebrand as a Sinclair station two years ago. This facilitated lower prices that have been an important weapon in competing against gas sold at nearby Safeway and Fred Meyer stores, Sall said.

These factors, along with growth on the Gig Harbor peninsula, drove what Sall described as a doubling of sales at the Sinclair station during his family’s ownership.

Seller still owns nearby site of proposed Chic-fil-A

With the recent sale, Sall and his parents give up a prime westside Gig Harbor location but remain key players in the neighborhood.

Through another LLC, they own 5115 Olympic Drive. It’s home to another gas station and mini-mart but may transition to a more lucrative use: Chick-fil-A is currently evaluating the site as a potential location for its first Gig Harbor restaurant. Property records show the family’s Sall Enterprises IV Inc. bought the 1.66 acre property for $2.3 million in 2020.

Many steps remain before any chicken sandwiches are sold at 5115 Olympic. The city of Gig Harbor is assessing Chick-fil-A’s conditional use permit application. Some neighbors have raised concerns over the proposed eatery’s potential impact on traffic and pedestrian safety.

With the sale of the Sinclair property, Sall has mostly unwound the real estate portfolio his family acquired over more than 20 years. At 50, he feels he’s earned the right to relax more. At one time, he and his parents owned seven gas and retail locations, four coffee shops under the Grind Star Coffee brand and a car wash.

But Sall said he plans to keep the 5115 Olympic Drive site as “something for my daughters.” Should Chick-fil-A choose to move forward there, he will provide the fast food giant with a ground lease for the property, he said.

The changeover from Shell to Sinclair products at 5006 Pt. Fosdick Drive took place in 2024. New co-owner Amrinderpal Khinda called Sinclair “the perfect brand for the location.” Sinclair has aggressively pursued market share in the state, resulting in a product that is priced competitively with the gas station’s two main competitors, nearby Safeway and Fred Meyer gas, he said. Source: Gig Harbor public portal

New owners

In contrast, the family enterprise that bought the Sinclair station from Sall and his parents is in expansion mode.

Amrinderpal Khinda and his father, Dharm Khinda, added 5006 Point Fosdick to a portfolio that now contains 13 properties, most of them gas stations and retail but with a couple strip malls, Amrinderpal Khinda said. One of the gas stations is in Spanaway and another is in Eatonville. A third, the Ashford Valley Grocery, is a regular stop for drivers heading to and from Mount Rainier via Highway 706.

The younger Khinda came to the United States from Punjab, India, at age 14 and graduated from the University of Washington in 2011. His father has owned properties in the region since 2000, he said.

The 5006 Point Fosdick Drive acquisition marks the family company’s first venture in Gig Harbor. The property appeared on their radar screen when it came up for sale almost a decade ago, but “it just didn’t work out,” Amrinderpal Khinda said.

“I remember just driving around the area and thinking, ‘what a beautiful place this is.’ ”

Both the market and managerial factors account for the property’s sharp increase in value, Khinda said.

Changing market

After the COVID pandemic, many new players, including out-of-state companies, entered the King and Pierce county markets seeking gas station mini-marts. This drove up prices, he said.

In addition, “there have been a lot of improvements to the property” over the past decade. This includes replacement and expansion of coolers, enabling the store to offer a wider variety of beers, soda and other drinks, Khinda said.

A series of improvements at the 5006 Point Fosdick Drive property contributed to its sharp increase in value. Photo by Ted Kenney

Both prior owner Sall and new owner Khinda agree that the 2024 change in affiliation from Shell Oil to Sinclair Oil contributed to the property’s higher value. They noted that Sinclair has moved aggressively into Washington, offering lower prices that local operators can pass on to their customers.

The Sinclair Oil parent company’s 2021 acquisition of Puget Sound Refinery in Anacortes boosted the effort to gain market share, they said.

Sall said he got a good price for the gas station in 2017 in part because other potential buyers were worried about competition from cheap gas sold at Fred Meyer, which was about to open down the street.

With help from Sinclair and from other changes made at the store, the risk paid off. “We more than doubled our sales over the years and kicked ass, basically,” he said.