By Angie Francalancia
Woolbright U-Gas, one of the rare gas stations that still offers auto service, is closing, soon to be replaced by a PNC Financial Services branch.
PNC has signed a 20-year lease for the land with Anagnostakis Inc., the family-owned corporation that has owned and operated Woolbright U-Gas, on the corner of South Federal Highway and Southeast 15th Avenue, since 1991. PNC will build a 3,300-square-foot branch with three drive-through lanes on the property.
The Planning and Development Board of Boynton Beach recommended approval for the bank’s site plan late last month. It goes before the Boynton Beach City Commission on Aug. 16.
The change doesn’t mean the Anagnostakis family won’t be servicing the community’s cars, though. It just means George Anagnostakis, who grew up in the gas station business alongside his father, won’t have to run between two business locations. George Anagnostakis is down the street from the U-Gas location at Chuck’s Auto Repair at 520 Industrial Ave.
“We bought Chuck’s Auto Repair because we knew in the future what this property would be worth,” he said. “For my father, now he can retire,” George Anagnostakis said.
Mihail “Michael” Anagnostakis, his wife, Angeliki, and three children, moved to South Florida in 1973. He opened his first service station in Broward County. A machinist by trade, Michael Anagnostakis always offered auto service at his stations, even after business trends eliminated most mechanics from modern gas stations. The senior Anagnostakis stopped working on cars in 1998, but by that time, son George could repair anything.
“I grew up in the gas station business,” George Anagnostakis said. “I worked from the age of 7 years old. Every Saturday I was washing windows for tips. Everything I learned as a mechanic, I learned from him,” he says of his father. George’s sister, Katina, has been the one greeting customers behind the counter for the past couple years.
The date of the station’s closing is not set, as PNC has about 12 months to decide when it will raze the old station and begin construction.
The new branch will be built to LEED, or Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design, standards — a bit of an irony considering the property was once contaminated. The Anagnostakis family had to clean the property after they purchased it from Shell in 2003, George Anagnostakis said.
“It’s come full-circle now,” George Anagnostakis says. I have the new shop, and we’re building up the business. My father can retire. I’m sure he’s going to be coming around here,” he said of Chuck’s, where there are five bays for bodywork as well as auto repairs.
“With the craziness in the oil market, you know we survived because of the garage,” George Anagnostakis said.
George went to school for training as the auto industry instituted more and more computer technology. And he invested in the necessary diagnostic machinery, he said. “I went to school, but there’s nothing like learning hands-on,” he says.
Michael and Angeliki, who return to their native Greece annually, will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in Crete, surrounded by family this summer, George said.
“Thank God he has peace of mind now,” he said.
George Anagnostakis stands with his father, Michael, in one of the family’s auto shops when George was a boy. Family photo
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