Tracy resident will now open laundromat in 80-year-old building on the highway
By Per Peterson
Tracy will eventually have a new laundromat, it just won’t be downtown.
Reed Kimball, who earlier this year purchased the building next to the Post Office downtown in hopes of turning it into a laundromat/coffee shop, is now busy with his father renovating a familiar building on the highway.
Kimball has changed gears in a major way as he continues his quest to bring a laundromat to town. His new building on 700 Craig Ave — which he purchased from his new neighbors, Dru Larson and John Hannasch, co-owners of Northwest Lighting — was originally home to the Miller Implement Co. in the 1940s.
Consider this Plan B for his laundromat plan.
“This is a good spot; parking is gonna be way easier,” Kimball said last week.
Indeed, parking was the biggest issue concerning the downtown location.
“It just got to be a debacle with the parking,” said Kimball. “I was kind of hoping we could do some diagonal parking, but that didn’t happen. Not that that would’ve fixed it … there’s just not enough parking spots. People don’t want to walk far with their laundry.”
Kimball said he had heard from a number of residents that the parking situation at his downtown location wasn’t exactly an optimal situation. He said the building also has some structural issues that were working against him and what he was planning on using the building for.
“We had some leaks for a while; we just got the roof fixed at the end of fall, and it just leaked consistently,” he said.
The floor also is an issue, he said. The current floor is in fine shape, but he was concerned there might be issues in the future, considering how much weight the floor would have to bear with numerous washers and dryers inside.
“There weren’t any major structural issues, but I would’ve had to add a lot more to the floor for the washers than I would’ve had to do (in the other building),” he said. (Moving) was almost a no-brainer. We’re worlds ahead here than we were (downtown).”
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.