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Feature Article, February 2005
Clean Rite Washes Up The East
Laundry superstore chain undertakes intensive expansion of successful network of stores.
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Clean Rite’s location on Sheffield Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, is an example of the units it likes to open.
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New York-based Clean Rite Centers is in full spin, splashing its brightly colored laundry superstores across communities from Boston to Atlanta. Founded in Brooklyn in 1996 by Alex Weiss, Clean Rite pioneered building and branding large, clean, air-conditioned 24-hour laundromats. The hard-to-miss, bright yellow-and-blue superstores offer professional attendants and many amenities.
“Instead of just opening a laundromat, what Alex has done is made a laundromat into an experience and taken it away from the drudgery of just washing clothes,” says Louis Wachtel, the company’s real estate advisor.
Creating that experience has been the secret to Clean Rite’s success. In addition to offering TVs, vending machines and smart card readers (a debit system that makes carrying quarters a thing of the past), the company is embarking on a community-oriented program, called “Wash and Learn.” At two Brooklyn locations, Clean Rite is partnering and sponsoring a reading program with Brooklyn College to promote literacy among school-age children who come to their centers. The company hopes to expand the program not only in New York but outside the city as well.
“Our customers are supporting our company,” notes Wachtel, “and we believe its incumbent upon us to support the community. “It’s not only good retail; it’s just good corporate citizenship.”
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Interior of Clean Rite in The Bronx, New York.
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With 82 stores currently, Clean Rite has grown significantly to include locations in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Georgia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The company’s expansion plans for 2005 and beyond are quite bullish, according to Wachtel. This year, Clean Rite plans to open eight units in the Philadelphia and New Jersey markets and an additional eight in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Two more locations are planned for Atlanta, a market in which the company has just entered. But the major growth will be in the five boroughs of New York.
“We would like to do a minimum of 12 to 18 stores in the boroughs next year,” says Wachtel. “And it could be as many as 24 to 40 stores, as long as the locations meet our criteria.”
Clean Rite’s long term growth pattern is to continue to build out current markets and enter additional markets with critical mass, not just one or two locations.
“We believe this is a regional business,” says President John Sabino. “We believe in clustering stores, and when we go into a market, we typically look to acquire three or four stores to create a base in that market. We try to understand the market, start to get some feelers in the real estate community and then focus on developing the market.”
Unlike small coin laundromats that are often hidden on side streets, Clean Rite superstores are on main thoroughfares or in shopping centers. The typical model is a bright, spacious environment with as much storefront, glass and natural light as possible.
“We keep it very clean, create a nice path of travel and provide ample folding tables and laundry carts,” notes Sabino. “It’s very well thought out, and we spend a lot of time walking through the stores even before we build them.”
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Making the laundromat an experience is what Clean Rite is all about.
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Clean Rite looks to lease or purchase buildings of at least 3,000 square feet (the average store is about 4,000 square feet) with on-site parking or vacant land of at least 6,000 square feet. The chain is multi-dimensional in its location strategy — leasing, ground leasing and buying property in urban locations as well as shopping centers and freestanding sites. Driven by demographic criteria, the company looks for an average household income of no less than $35,000 and caters to both blue-collar and white-collar families. Outside of urban locations, Clean Rite looks for a 3-mile demographic of $75,000.
“The single most important criteria when we crunch our demographics is the percentage of renters to owners,” notes Wachtel. “We will not go below 35 percent; we like our threshold to be closer to 40 percent.”
Another defining criteria for a Clean Rite laundromat is parking. “We want customers to be able to go into our parking lots and right into the store,” Sabino says. “So parking becomes extremely important.”
One of the company’s latest developments is its new supercenter in the South Bronx, located in the recently completed New Horizons Shopping Center, which is anchored by a Pathmark supermarket as well as numerous other national tenants. A supermarket is a great complement to Clean Rite, which really sees itself as a retail store that just happens to be a laundromat.
“We bring a different dimension within the shopping center environment or within any environment,” Wachtel notes. “There’s usually only one laundromat, so we’re non-competitive, and it’s a great opportunity to do core shopping.”
Besides bringing in a couple of thousand customers on a weekly basis (who hang around a shopping center for an average of 2 hours and 15 minutes), what can landlords expect from Clean Rite?
“Since we’ve been in business, we’ve never closed a laundromat,” says Wachtel. “We’re extremely proud of that.”
— Susan H. Fishman
©2005 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.
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