The following article appeared in the Aug. 5 edition of The Arizona Republic.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Everyone drives. It rarely rains. The dust is ubiquitous. These are the factors that drove Danny Hendon to open his first carwash in the Valley 21 years ago.
Today, the owner of Danny's Family Car Wash runs 12 sites and is ready to stake a much bigger claim in the Valley. He's planning a $100 million expansion with 17 new carwashes over the next two years.
Hendon, who also owns Barcelona restaurant and nightclub in Scottsdale, is financing it himself through three loans. The new carwashes, some of which are already under construction, will be built in Avondale, Buckeye, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Goodyear, Peoria, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe.
"We're really following major shopping centers and the freeway system," said Hendon, who recommends that people wash their cars every month or so. "We have a window of opportunity, and we're taking it."
All of the new sites will be near shopping centers. Hendon, 55, said he is working with Vestar Development Co., which runs Desert Ridge Marketplace, and Westcor, which is responsible for 10 major shopping centers in the Valley.
"Danny's complements our power town centers, which provide one-stop shopping," said Rick Hearn, director of leasing at Vestar.
"His carwashes cater to consumers who don't want to drive to different locations to get their car cleaned, serviced, gassed up and on the road."
Vestar and Danny's have five projects in the works: two in Gilbert at Gilbert Road and Loop 202, and at Power Road and Loop 202; at Happy Valley Road and Interstate 17 in Phoenix; and at locations in Buckeye and Peoria.
Hearn said there would likely be more partnerships down the road.
It costs at least $6 million to build a carwash from the ground up, said Hendon. But he expects to triple his annual revenues after expansion.
"We do $110 million per year with the current sites," said Hendon, whose original name for the chain was Danny's Family Carousel Car Wash. "We'll do close to $300 million when we're done."
Only half of the chain's earnings come from actual full-service carwashes. The rest come from auto work, including oil changes and window tints and the convenience stores located at each Danny's site.
"We sell a lot of greeting cards," Hendon said.
The chain's biggest competitor in the Valley is Phoenix-based Cobblestone Auto Spa & Market, which has five locations.
"We're fairly similar to Danny's, but our business model is a little different," said Tuck Bettin, Cobblestone's general manager. "Customers don't have to travel between buildings - they enter in one area."
Cobblestone also expects to grow by several locations in the next few years, said Bettin, who agrees with Hendon that the climate and driving conditions in the Valley make for good business.
"The heat and dust we drive in, and the speed people drive on freeways, are all very damaging to the exterior finish of a car," Bettin said.
Before Hendon came to the Valley, he worked as a cop and then in the furniture business in Detroit. Hendon employs 1,200 people at his carwashes, which wash close to 2.5 million cars a year with reclaimed water. Still, Hendon said, only 15 percent of car owners clean their cars in a full-service carwash.
"My biggest competitor is the guy that washes his car in the driveway," he said.
Source: The Arizona Republic
