A car wash in a former toy store? Valet made it its business model
A new conveyor belt express car wash is opening almost every day in the United States. The car wash market is at an all-time high, with big brands like Mister Car Wash, Driven Brands and ZIPS on a constant lookout for new locations. Some companies avoid building from scratch and go after big empty stores on prime locations. Investor Jason Miller gives a few examples of re-use in his interesting piece.
Take for example the Valet Auto Wash in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. It is a huge (40,000 sq ft) former ToysRUs retail store converted to an express tunnel. According to Miller it’s not the first big box they have reconstructed to a profitable car wash.
He mentions the very first Valet Auto Wash in Trenton from 1994, which was built inside a historical trolley car barn. Or the carwash in Lawrenceville, which was built in a former warehouse. The before and after pictures in Miller’s article are especially enlightening.
Sustainable
Re-using an existing building and converting it for a new purpose seems sensible policy, in a time where sustainability and cradle-to-cradle production are on the rise.
It does demand a very creative team to fit all the modern equipment in the building and get all the logistics right.
But in a time where affordable vacant lots are increasingly harder to find, Valet clearly is onto something.
Read the original article here
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