Much like some people say “pop” and others say “soda,” there’s a pretty big split amongst adherents of Sheetz and Wawa (even on the DCist staff), two convenience stores/gas stations found in varying concentration in the states surrounding the District. So when news leaked out yesterday that Wawa might be eyeing a D.C. location a little more closely, there was understandable excitement from its supporters.

But as the Washington Business Journal wrote yesterday, Wawa doesn’t yet have an urban concept that could fit into the District. Instead, it’s merely looking to fill out the suburbs around the city:

“We have several sites in the works,” said Peter Gilligan, Wawa Inc. ‘s vice president and chief real estate officer, though he would not specify where. “We’re looking to fill out the D.C. and Baltimore corridor, both in Northern Virginia and Maryland.”

The Wawa, Penn.-based company would like to enter D.C. proper as well, but currently intends to add locations with both gas stations and convenience stores, which means that it is harder to fit Wawa’s space requirements in the city, Gilligan said. Wawa sites normally are around 5,000 square feet each. The company has smaller, convenience-only locations in such cities as Philadelphia, but it recently opened a location with fuel in the Baltimore area. The company’s closest location to D.C. is in Beltsville.

We’ve heard much the same from Wegmans over the years — the grocer’s development model includes the acres and acres of parking that you’re not likely to find in the District.

All we can say is this: Try harder. Target made it work. Walmart is making it work. You can make it work. There’s more than enough people in this city that would love to see Wawa or Wegmans, and coming up with an urban-friendly concept can’t be rocket science. For Wawa, they’d have another advantage — Sheetz isn’t yet interested in D.C., so getting here first would be a big win. So get to it.