Construction Concepts: Elite Car Wash

Headquarters: Clermont, Fla.
Founded: 2006
Founder: Philip Toppino
Current President/CEO: Philip Toppino
Wash Process: Full service
Carwash Equipment Used: PECO Carwash Systems
Add-on Profit Centers: Office/lease space, video games, water cannons, retail space.

Project Background:

When I purchased our two acres, my intention wasn’t to build a carwash but medical/professional office space. While I was designing the plans for the office building, a Tire Kingdom purchased the land next to me. Being an entrepreneur first, I decided to do my homework and make the best of it. There wasn’t a full-service carwash location within 15 miles as the crow flies, so why not make an auto-service facility and bring in a quick lube to round it off? We would become a one-stop shop auto-service center.

I decided to keep the office building concept as well. I felt both elements could be combined, and that’s what makes our site so unique. We are not just a large carwash but a fully integrated office building with a carwash tunnel behind it.

Project Challenges:

One of the biggest hurdles is consulting, so do your homework. I would not recommend a new investor take advice from someone who hasn’t built and owned a carwash location. Managing a single carwash or multiple locations may not be enough either; are they full- or self-service locations?

While my architect had built office buildings and quick-lube facilities and I had a good builder, civil engineer, carwash equipment vendor and a carwash veteran to provide direction, no one had ever put all of these components together. There wasn’t someone who had the experience to advise and communicate between contractors on how all the components went together.

While I had assembled a team with members experienced in all the right areas, the whole was not equal to the sum of the parts. While they were all good as individuals, trying to get them to freely share and update information turned out to be very time consuming and costly. It resulted in a time crunch which rushed the process, and not much goes right when things are rushed.

The biggest hurdles were change orders (typically cost plus 30 percent) in order to stay on schedule. One big concern new owners will run into when developing a site is if specific updates and revisions are left off the final set of plans, you have zero chance of staying remotely close to your budget.

In the grand scheme of things, architects are paid the least compared to contractors, and yet they are one of the most important. When there is a mistake or design flaw or something is “accidentally omitted” from the plans, good luck getting the architect to pay for the new change order or reduce their fee. You will likely be told that you would have needed to pay for it anyway. Typically their contracts are so full of holes you could drive a truck through them, so unless all the planning and drawings are done right the first time, you could be in for a long and painful process.

What hundreds of thousands of dollars and months out of your life will teach you is, if your architect simply leaves something off the drawings but the omission doesn’t endanger your project, you can’t make the architect pay for the change order to add it on later. Put another way, as long as the drawings don’t show neglect and you can still