GetGo car wash site in Irwin recommended for approval
Giant Eagle Inc.’s plans to build a car wash at the site of a former motel along Route 30 in Irwin moved a step closer last week when North Huntingdon officials approved the site plans and Irwin Borough’s planning commission gave its green light for the project.
Although the car wash is to be built in Irwin, the parcel is along the border of both municipalities next to a McDonald’s restaurant. The WetGo car wash will be close to a shopping plaza containing a Giant Eagle supermarket and a GetGo convenience store with fuel pumps.
The North Huntingdon commissioners Wednesday approved the site plans for the car wash, which is on the property that was home to the former Penn-Irwin Motel for some 70 years. The township planning commission had recommended approval of the plans.
The site owned by Colony Development Inc. of North Huntingdon has seen removal of the hill on which the motel was situated and construction of a retaining wall to hold the hillside that had been cut for the construction of an AutoZone vehicle parts store.
The Irwin Planning Commission also Wednesday unanimously recommended to borough council that the site plan for the 3,400-square-foot car wash be approved, pending highway occupancy permits from PennDOT.
The car wash will have two driveways and space to stack 21 cars in a driveway the business will share with AutoZone, said Brian Majeran, a project engineer for Morris Knowles & Associates of Delmont. Those cars will not stretch back onto Route 30, as has been the case with the lineup of cars at nearby fast-food restaurants.
A traffic study determined that there is sufficient space for a peak daily traffic count of 780 vehicles, but 570 vehicles per day is more reasonable.
Construction of the car wash may not start until March or April, and it will be finished in about five months, said Lee May, site manager for Get Go Operating LLC, a subsidiary of Giant Eagle. The car wash, with a 122-foot-long tunnel, will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., May said.
While the area around the car wash will be lit, May said the houses on a hillside above the property likely will not be impacted because the retaining wall is so high. There will be landscaping atop the wall to further block any light. The noise from the dryers will be contained inside the building, and the sound people hear will not be louder than the traffic noise on Route 30, May said
David McKinney a spokesman for Memphis, Tenn.-based AutoZone, could not be reached for comment.
Joe Napsha is a TribLive reporter covering Irwin, North Huntingdon and the Norwin School District. He also writes about business issues. He grew up on Neville Island and has worked at the Trib since the early 1980s. He can be reached at jnapsha@triblive.com.
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