We probably noticed the Triad Realty sign on the car wash on 34th Street just south of Grays Ferry Avenue a couple months ago, but didn't think much of it. But the thought of the sign stayed with us. We started wondering just how much ground the sign covered. Did it just involve the building housing the car wash? Did it include the gas station immediately next door to the north? Did it include the recently renovated Dunkin Donuts to the south? We needed answers.
We reached out to Triad to enquire and learned that the opportunity isn't quite as sweet as we'd hoped. Indeed, the car wash is looking to close up shop, and its building is available for lease. The gas station isn't included in the proposition, nor is the Dunkin Donuts. So what you're looking at is a large warehouse building with a partial mezzanine with a donut shop on one side and a gas station on the other side. The place is not for sale, so you can forget about any redevelopment possibility. Then again, given the location next to the highway and the zoning as auto-oriented commercial, we're not sure what would actually be a higher or better use than the car wash.
Maybe in a decade or two, as Pennovation Works grows by leaps and bounds and Forgotten Bottom blossoms, this building will be available again and might prove a more interesting development opportunity. In the meantime, we expect it will remain a car wash, whether run by its current operators or somebody else.