Pit Stop: Gas stations are another real estate asset class being disrupted
When Bertha Benz, a German automotive pioneer and inventor, took his two sons and drove 66 miles on August 5, 1888, to visit her mother it was registered as the world’s first long-distance trip with an automobile. Besides showing the public the invention she had been working on with her husband, Karl Benz, she also wanted to test the first horseless vehicle on a long road trip.
With no fuel tank and less than 2 gallons of petrol in the motor, she had to find ligroin, the petroleum solvent needed for the car to run. At that time petroleum products were only available to pharmacists, so the pharmacy that she stopped on her way to buy fuel became the world’s first fuel station. For a long period of time pharmacies, convenience stores or blacksmith shops sold gasoline, in cans or bottles, as a side business.
But it wasn’t until the opening of a dedicated, full-service gas station in Pittsburgh in 1913 a new era of transportation and a new property type was born. As part of the American “road” culture, gas stations have been a mainstay in every city, town, and map dot across the country. At its peak, there were about 115,000 gas stations in the U.S. That figure has dropped sharply over the last two decades. It will likely continue to shrink as electric vehicles rise in popularity.
This is yet another example of how real estate as we know is going to change forever. Demand for different types of space comes and goes. Technology and changing consumer habits create new real estate asset classes while disrupting or transforming others at the same time.
For the rest of the article… https://www.propmodo.com/pit-stop-how-gas-stations-as-a-real-estate-asset-class-are-being-disrupted/.
