VALPARAISO, Ind.—Family Express said it has acquired six c-stores in the Warsaw area from Freedom Oil and in a separate deal has acquired a three-acre site in the Indianapolis suburb of McCordsville that it is redeveloping to include a carwash and pet wash.

Family Express, which entered the suburban Indianapolis area market in 2018, said the two acquisitions will increase its store count by 10%. The c-store chain has about 73 locations throughout Northwest and North Central Indiana.

The company said it is constructing a carwash and a pet wash at the McCordsville site in line with its strategy to include a carwash at half of its locations. The new site also features the Family Express foodservice operation, Cravin’s-To-Order.

Family Express will convert the Freedom Oil stores to feature NCR/Optic technology at the pump. Family Express, in collaboration with NCR, has already delivered advanced technologies to the Family Express network, including two first-time innovations in the c-store space.

“One is the ability to order food at the pump and pay concurrent with the gasoline purchase. This removes unnecessary friction by ensuring that the customer does not go through the payment process twice,” said Alex Olympidis, president of operations for Family Express, in a press release.

"The other is TransArmor/Fiserv security at the pump, which eliminates the possibility of a major security breach. TransArmor fragments access to the entire deck rendering a breach undesirable to a potential hacker,” Olympidis said.

The Freedom Oil transaction was shepherded by NRC Realty & Capital Advisors LLC, based in Chicago, and it is expected to close by late April.

Last year Family Express completed a multimillion-dollar expansion of its bakery distribution center at its headquarters in Valparaiso.

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