Lawrenceville's mayor and City Council unanimously approved a rezoning request this month that clears the way for a new Costco warehouse club on roughly 20 acres along the Highway 316 corridor — one of the biggest retail projects to land in the city in years, though shoppers will need to be patient.
The site sits off University Parkway, a little more than two miles north of Lawrenceville City Hall and just south of SR 316, on a lot currently used for rental RV parking. According to the city's own staff report, the approved plan calls for a 158,000-square-foot warehouse store, 854 parking spaces, and a 32-pump gas station.
Why the city wanted it
City Manager Chuck Warbington told WSB-TV the store "meets a need for our community for food and low-cost groceries as the economy is today," noting that Gwinnett shoppers currently have to drive to Costco locations near the Mall of Georgia or Gwinnett Place Mall. Costco now operates 10 locations across metro Atlanta, including a Stone Mountain store that opened in late August 2026. The company reported $297.2 billion in net sales for the fiscal year ending August 30 — up roughly 10% year over year — making it one of the country's fastest-growing retailers to be courting Gwinnett sites.
The traffic plan
A warehouse club of this size doesn't come without trade-offs, and traffic was the council's central concern. City staff estimate the store will generate about 7,000 vehicle trips in and out of the site per day. Costco completed a 600-page traffic study of the surrounding intersections before the approval, and the resulting plan splits access between two entrances — one off Buford Drive, one off Collins Hill Road — to avoid funneling all that traffic through a single intersection. Costco has agreed to build a connector road at its own expense, while the city will add turn lanes and retime nearby signals to handle the added volume.
Not every resident is sold on the trade-off. "The traffic is going to just be a nightmare," resident Nathan Smith, who lives a mile or two from the site, told WSB-TV. Others see it differently: resident Taylor Smith told the station the store will bring new jobs and shopping options closer to home instead of requiring a drive to Buford. Warbington said the city is trying to plan ahead rather than react, pointing to traffic headaches other Georgia communities have faced after their own Costco openings landed.
When it actually opens
Don't expect a grand opening anytime soon. Costco still has to acquire the land from the city, a process City Manager Warbington estimated will take six to 12 months on its own. District 3 Commissioner Mike Beaudreau, discussing the broader 316 corridor project, said the store isn't expected to open until 2028 or 2029 — "around the same time as the work on 316 is finally finished." Costco did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the project from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
For anyone house-hunting along the Highway 316 corridor or near University Parkway, this is the kind of project worth watching: it signals real retail investment is coming to that stretch of Lawrenceville, even if the warehouse doors themselves are still a few years away from opening.