The Busy Bee Travel Center planned for the southwest corner of Interstate 10 and State Road 79 near Bonifay still has no groundbreaking as of August 30, 2026.
What began as a 2024 opening date has slipped through 2025 and 2026. The reasons now given in public are narrower than the full record: company sequencing and another Florida site.
The longer paper trail shows loan interest, grant clocks, unfinished site design, and years of friction between county boards.
What officials advertise now
The Holmes County Development Commission’s latest explanation is that Busy Bee is delaying Bonifay so it can finish a travel center in Ellisville, in Columbia County. That project has hit its own “roadblocks” and is now expected to open in late 2027.
Representatives say the company will complete Ellisville before it breaks ground in Holmes County—a further 14- to 16-month wait before Bonifay construction starts. If that sequence holds, dirt is unlikely to move in Bonifay until late 2027 or 2028, years after the first public promises.
That is the advertised reason for the newest slip. It matches how a family-owned chain often builds: one major plaza at a time, with crews and capital following the first job.
It is not the first official excuse. In July 2025, after the December 2024 sale of 86 acres, commissioners approved a grant-agreement extension because the owners said they needed more time.
Development officials then said construction would start in November 2025 and the store would open in December 2026. Neither date was met.
At a joint commission meeting in August 2025, leaders still talked about a November start even as they argued over who would pay interest on the land loan. The Ellisville explanation arrived only after that November window closed.
What was advertised when the deal was sold to the public
The project was never sold as a maybe. A June 2022 contract and an October 2022 purchase of 11.8 acres were followed by talk of the company’s largest plaza, Tesla chargers, a first-in-the-area Starbucks, truck parking and a 2024 completion.
After the December 2024 closing, Holmes County EDC and Opportunity Florida repeated a familiar package: a 55,000-square-foot travel center, 100 to 133 jobs, about $23.8 million in annual sales, $1.8 million in sales-tax revenue, $200,000 in property tax, hotels and retail on the remaining acreage, and donated land for a Bonifay fire station.
Mayor Larry F. Cook called it a landmark that would shape the city for generations. The EDC website still lists Project Gateway as sold, with Busy Bee as the future tenant. None of those economic numbers can materialize until the building exists.
Reasons that were not on the billboard
County records show why the site was never “shovel-ready” on the company’s timetable.Holmes County and the Development Commission bought the larger tract with a $4.4 million loan.
Interest became a political problem as years passed with no store and no new tax base. Commissioner Brandon Newsom warned as early as 2023 that taxpayers could be left with six-figure annual interest if the deal stalled, and he later sought reimbursement under the joint-venture agreement.
In August 2025 the development commission agreed to repay about half the interest, just under $289,000. Delays were no longer only a developer’s calendar. They were a line item.
Infrastructure grants were supposed to make the interchange buildable. The county received a Rural Infrastructure Grant of about $1.87 million and a Community Development Block Grant of about $3.3 million for water, sewer and access.
Those dollars come with deadlines and job-creation scores. In an August 5, 2025, regular session, engineer Rod Adams of Melvin Engineering told commissioners that site design for Busy Bee was still needed, that they were advancing road-improvement design because “the site work appears to be a year off,” and that “there are no more extensions available for the grants.”
The board approved an amendment stretching Rural Infrastructure Grant 00271 to December 15, 2026. That date is now less than four months away, with no travel center under construction. Busy Bee has been described as obligated to repay grants if the project does not come to fruition.
Governance added drag. The Board of County Commissioners and the Development Commission spent 2023–2025 arguing over contracts some commissioners said they had not seen, over a $1 million penalty tied to a late-2020s opening, and over whether the joint venture itself was slowing the sale.
In March 2024 they moved to unwind the joint venture so Busy Bee could own the whole tract. Newsom said the project had been billed as costing the county nothing and that a “relaxed and reactive approach” risked burning through public money. Selling the land to the Warings ended one fight. It did not pour a slab.
What “failure” means from here
No public source as of August 30, 2026, says Busy Bee has canceled Bonifay. The advertised story is still sequencing: Ellisville first, Bonifay later. The projected cost of that story is measurable. Holmes County has already paid interest on land it no longer owns.
Grant clocks are tight. Job and tax projections remain on paper. Hotels and retail on the extra 60 acres cannot precede a store that has not started.The less advertised story is that Bonifay was never only waiting on a contractor’s other job.
It was waiting on site plans, grant extensions, a loan the public still felt, and two local boards that spent years negotiating with each other. Until Ellisville opens or Busy Bee changes the order of its builds, the I-10/SR 79 corner remains graded ambition rather than a travel center.
