A Cheshire property owner is looking to build a car wash with vacuums on the space along Route 10 where a vacant Arby’s restaurant with drive-thru sits.
Woodbridge-based WTB Realty and Kenneth S. Ginsberg, along with PDS Engineering and Construction of Bloomfield, are seeking a special permit and site plan application approval for a car wash facility at 980 South Main St., Cheshire.
The 1-acre parcel contains a vacant 3,600-square-foot fast-food restaurant building that would be demolished to build a new 3,500-square-foot car wash with a two-lane queue capable of holding 14 cars merging into one lane when entering the facility.
The property would have 16 vacuum spaces, and six parking spaces for employees and visitors.
Hours of operation would be 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week.
Members of the Planning and Zoning Commission at a hearing this week expressed concerns about the flow of traffic into and out of the property, expressly worried that cars would back up onto Route 10.
Ginsburg said he’d prefer to reverse the layout and have vacuums closer to the road, with the car wash toward the back, allowing for a longer queue farther from the road, but town regulations state the primary building, the car wash, must be in the front, with the accessory structures, the vacuums, toward the back.
“We made that happen with some sacrifices,” Ginsberg said. “We would love to push the queue back, but that’s not what we heard the town wanted, so we put queueing in front and vacuuming in the back.”
Ginsberg and his team will return to the PZC for more review of the queue and traffic impact.
