Wawa going up at site of $44/night motel in Orange Park

Demolition is underway at an Orange Park motel that has a history of ongoing crime activity, according to a new article in the Times Union.

Action News Jax reported last July when the Parkway Inn was forced to shut down and was originally only scheduled to stay closed until December.

Orange Park leaders cited the motel as a nuisance and shut it down last year due to drug and prostitution calls.

"Everything from meth labs to prostitution, nothing that sounds good for Orange Park," neighbor Cleve Carter told Action News Jax last July when the motel was ordered to shut down.

Action News Jax obtained 18 pages of service calls for the motel, and the 600 hundred calls range from burglaries, drugs, and assault.

"Everyone knows about it," said Carter.

Town attorneys say the motel had safety, health, and building code violations, but the owners decided to sue the town of Orange Park for targeting the inn even after they made the necessary changes.

According to the Times Union, demolition is already under way and once cleared the site will be home to a Wawa convenience store set to open in the summer of 2018.

Cox Media Group