A sizeable portion of the character of the Ohio town of Streetsboro, which is located off the well-known turnpike in the state, is owed to vehicles and the companies that support them. Every year, about 6.5 million cars pass by, and the majority of the local retail mix is made up of drive-through establishments, petrol stations, and motels.
However, a number of voters have been upset with Mayor Glenn Broska in recent years over one specific aspect of the autocentric landscape: car washes.
Three of the town’s full-service car washes are grouped together on a quarter of a mile stretch of Route 14, and a fifth is on its way. Town officials acted after receiving complaints on social media regarding the excessive car wash. Streetsboro ultimately decided to put a stop to the opening of new car washes at the beginning of the year.
“Car washes take up a lot of space and do not create many jobs for the community,” Broska added. “God bless you if you decide to put your money into a vehicle wash. However, I also have 17,500 people under my care, so I have to respect their views.
According to Cleveland Scene, other similar “saturation bans” have been implemented in neighboring northeast Ohio cities like Parma and Stow. Buffalo, New York saw a spike in suburban car wash openings in 2023, which incited hostility from the local populace and business owners of the area’s existing car wash. As nationwide businesses like Mister Car Wash and Zips Car Wash grow, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Alaska are also experiencing their own car wash booms.
A new Mister Car Wash establishment was denied a permit to be built by the Lebanon, Tennessee, planning commission last fall. They claimed the mostly automated business wasn’t the greatest use for a prominent Main Street site. In retaliation, the business is suing.
Is it possible to have too many car washes in a nation with almost 280 million private automobiles and trucks? Increasingly, city officials appear to agree. In contrast to shops, eateries, and other establishments, the majority of self-service car washes do not pay sales taxes to the towns where they are located. Furthermore, detractors contend that these automated facilities offer little in the way of local benefits; similar to drive-through fast-food restaurants (which have also been the subject of local ordinances), they generate little employment opportunities in addition to increasing noise, traffic jams, and vehicle emissions.
On the other hand, investors perceive the start of a boom where neighbors may perceive a too crowded market. Companies are rushing to open new locations and take a piece of this $14 billion+ business, whether they are in the Sunbelt or the Snow Belt. With 60,000 sites nationwide, the industry has been growing at a rate of about 5% per year, and some projections indicate that the market may double by 2030. The last ten years have seen the construction of more car washes than all the years before combined.
“I don’t want to be overly optimistic and say that this can’t fail,” said Jeffrey Cicurel, director of capital markets at JLL, a brokerage for real estate. “However, as more Americans relocate to the suburbs, they have higher standards for shopping, which includes car washes.”
There’s a Boom
The rise in car washes is indicative of a larger trend away from do-it-yourself auto maintenance. Similar to replacing your own oil, washing the family car in the driveway has progressively become a relic from earlier times: The International Car Wash Association reports that from 50% in 1996 to 79% in 2021, more washes were performed at professional facilities.
According to Ian Rickwood, the CEO and founder of Henley Investment Management, an international investment and fund management company with its sights set on US car washes, “we think this is the coffee market in the early ’90s, when Starbucks got going.” People in the community replied, “If coffee costs $5, then I doubt anyone will purchase more than one cup each day.'” Naturally, when more and more opened, the category grew as a result of people starting to adopt new behaviors.
Furthermore, according to Cicurel, despite the fact that Covid-19 severely altered driving habits, Americans continued to wash their automobiles. For the previous four years, car washes have profited from this trend. The foundations of retail are stronger than ever.
In an effort to combine separate locations or develop their own brands, about 50 investment groups have been purchasing or developing facilities across the country, according to Eric Wulf, CEO of the International Car Wash Association. Just last fall, three expansion plans received investments totaling more than $750 million. A pause in merger and acquisition activity was caused by the several financial difficulties of 2023, including rising borrowing rates, although Wulf noted that these obstacles aren’t substantial. This is merely a break in the pattern. Supporters are upbeat about a scalable sector with average revenue per location of $1.5 million.
“In the last five to ten years, car washing has experienced unprecedented growth and development; I cannot think of another category, especially in the retail space,” Wulf remarked. “Yes, there’s a chance of overcrowding and saturation in some areas, but I believe towns and cities have been caught off guard by the demand.”
