The second-quarter commercial permit filings for 2026 are officially in, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, the Hub City is doubling down on its favorite holy trinity: fried poultry, automotive maintenance, and endless orange construction cones. Local bureaucrats have greenlit dozens of new projects, ensuring that our landscape remains a beautiful, uninterrupted vista of strip malls and suburban sprawl.
First up on the culinary front, Lubbock’s relentless obsession with birds continues. We are officially getting a Layne’s Chicken Fingers on Slide Road, presumably because the other 50 chicken joints in a three-mile radius just weren’t quite cutting it. To handle the overflow, the Chick-fil-A on 82nd and Milwaukee is getting a renovation. To offset the collective cardiac arrest of the South Plains, the city also approved a Crunch Fitness at the mall and a “HEAL Wellness” building on University. Because nothing says “healthy lifestyle” like buying a protein shake right after eating your weight in Texas toast.
If you manage to survive the drive between chicken restaurants, you’ll have plenty of places to service your vehicle. The city has approved not one, but two new Valvoline Instant Oil Changes, because getting your oil changed is apparently a premier cultural pastime here. We’re also getting the “Dark Auto Spa – Carwash & Lounge” on 66th Street. Because who hasn’t thought to themselves, “Man, I’d love to lounge around and sip an espresso while watching a high-pressure nozzle blast dirt off a Chevy Tahoe?”
Naturally, you won’t actually be able to drive any of these freshly lubed vehicles anywhere because the city is also launching major roadwork. Get ready to lose your mind over the Broadway Street Reconstruction from Avenue Q to Avenue E, alongside Upland Avenue improvements. But hey, if the traffic drives you to hoarding, you can always store your existential dread at the newly permitted Orchard Park Self Storage on 114th.
With all these new banks, churches, and car washes coming down the pipeline, Lubbock is truly cementing its status as the strip-mall capital of West Texas. But look on the bright side: when you’re trapped in gridlock on a torn-up Broadway Street this summer, at least you’ll be within spitting distance of a box of tenders and a freshly greased engine.
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