North Wichita Club Car Wash granted permission to build on Little Arkansas River site

Club Car Wash has been approved by the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission to build a north Wichita location on the bank of the Little Arkansas River, despite a number of outspoken neighborhood critics.

The planning commission unanimously supported the zoning request Thursday to build a car wash within 200 feet of residential zoning just east of 21st and Amidon. The city council must ultimately give their approval before construction can begin.

Planning staff said they received roughly 40 emails from residents who opposed the zoning proposal. Several more residents called into the hearing to voice their concerns.

Wichita resident Andrew McMillin wrote that the Arkansas River “already has a terrible reputation for its odor, its Yangtze color, and its seemingly limitless trash and debris.”

“Please don’t add insult to injury by allowing a corporation to build a chemically and water-dependent business this close to the Arkansas River, which belongs to all of us Wichitans,” McMillin wrote in an email.

Club Car Wash’s proposed drainage plan, which has already been approved by the city’s Public Works Storm Water Division, will capture and treat water before releasing it into the sewer system.

“We did go above the requirements of what we call the water quality system. It’s an expensive system,” said Kurt Daniels of Cochran Engineering, which designed the filtration system.

“Present-day, that water is discharging into the river with oil and whatever is dripping off of cars as they park there today. What we’re doing is, every drop of water that hits the pavement when the cars come out of the water, we collect it, we treat it before we put it back into the river.”

Four buildings in Coolidge Village were sold and slated for demolition in anticipation of the Club Car Wash development. Longtime Wichita bar and restaurant Penny’s Caravan closed in May, and Tacos Raymundo has merged with another restaurant.

The Missouri-based car wash chain, which is co-owned by Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has already opened two Wichita locations. Four more will be operational by the end of the year.

Joan Kincaid, whose family has owned the property since the 1950s, said it’s in “pretty bad shape.”

“It needs someone that can take it over, and I’m real impressed with Club Car Wash. They seem to have a unique way of working with the area,” Kincaid said.

Firehouse 7 sits just north of the development site, and the planning commission requested that Club Car Wash provide a traffic study to determine whether a car wash access point roughly 30 feet from the fire station’s south drive could create congestion resulting in fire engines getting stuck behind car wash customers.

Club Car Wash commissioned a traffic study from Brian Coon of Kaw Valley Engineering, who found that the car wash would not increase the blockage risk, and that it would in fact “generate less traffic” than the businesses that were shuttered to make way for it.

“Frankly, the alternatives to the car wash use will likely have higher traffic volumes, be less desirable to the fire station, and not improve 21st Street safety,” the study states.

Jose Ocadiz, battalion chief of the Wichita Fire Department’s Community Risk Reduction Division, told The Eagle Wednesday that the study quelled concerns within the department that the car wash could create traffic jams.

This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 9:33 AM.