Thought experiment: would you put a laundromat here?

[CKH]

I have a dream of buying an operational laundromat someday, hopefully soon! But tonight as I was driving my kids to soccer practice, I noticed an empty retail space for lease and it got the wheels turning, and I don’t know if it’s an amazing location or the world’s worst! Are you intrigued by that? Well here’s the deal:

About five miles from my house, there is a commercial park. It is anchored by a Walmart, Lowe’s, various other big box stores, and a Dollar Tree. It also has a soccer and baseball complex run by the parks department, where mostly upper income families bring their kids for game, although there are some lower-income leagues as well. There is a DMV branch right next door and a Bottle Drop, where people who collect bottles and cans go and exchange them for cash. This tends to have a line that is literally hundreds of yards long on some nights. There is an Amazon Distribution center, a Motel 6, and a little outside the area is a large Fairfield Inn by Marriott. That all sounds good, right? Well, there’s more you should know.

See, this area is the site of a MASSIVE homeless encampment. In fact, you can’t call it one encampment. There are probably four or five sections all geographically spread out. The Bottle Drop attracts them. All of this big box retail is completely surrounded by tents, burned out RVs, and so, so much garbage everywhere. I cannot possibly understate the garbage. Imagine the worst thing you can and then multiply it by 10. Moreover, this is not a residential area. There is an apartment complex and a mobile home park. A little to the north there is also a houseboat area and some more hotels. The area is really rough, but the Walmart and Lowe’s are thriving. Other businesses are not, though. Two restaurants have been forced to close down entirely, although they were never really good in the first place. The owners of those places blamed the bottle drop and homeless population for making the zone unattractive to customers. And they have a point.

So, given all this, what do you think? Is it a genius location or an insane idea?

[Author]

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