Car wash site plan approved on split board vote

By Dana Casadei

The 11,000 square feet that was once home to Tim Horton’s at 40 E. Square Lake Road is one step closer to becoming a Clean Express Car Wash, following a split Bloomfield Township board vote, 6-1, on Monday, December 9, on the site plan for the business.

“They worked very hard on this,” said Andrea Bibby, deputy director of planning, building & Ordinance. “They wanted something to fit into the area and they really accomplished that goal.”

The Clean Express Car Wash will be one of only a few car washes in Bloomfield Township and will be fully enclosed, with the vacuums underneath the parking area, satisfying the township’s ordinance requirements.

“We feel the enclosed operation is a nice update to the typical car wash,” Bibby said.

Clean Express Car Wash is capable of serving 100 vehicles per hour – with free indoor vacuums available among their 90 locations across the midwest, and 10 in development within Michigan.

From the outside their plan is to have 22 parking spaces, more than covering the township requirement, and vehicles waiting in line for the car wash will be surrounded by landscaping while in the que. Clean Express Car Wash is planning to do quite a bit of landscaping, including adding more trees to the area.

A traffic impact assessment was done and found no concerns.

With their automatic conveyor style carwash Clean Express Car Wash uses dryer equipment instead of there being a need to have each vehicle hand dried at the exit of the car wash, therefore creating less of a backup when they have a line of cars.

A water reclamation system is used at the car wash, recycling 80 percent of the water used in each wash to help reduce their environmental impact to the local water system.

There will be two automatic pay stations covered by canopies that guests can use for payment, and at least three employees on site during working hours, one of whom will be stationed outside to help with any issues people may have with the pay stations. More employees will be there during peak hours for the car wash.

“When this was coming to the planning commission, I didn’t know what to expect,” said trustee Neal Barnett. “We’ve never had a car wash like this. Everyone on the planning commission was very enthusiastic of this.”

Township trustee Mark Antakli cast the only vote in opposition to the proposal.