UTICA, Mich. — Michael Kline has an answer to high rent: think cubic feet, not square feet. Here at his Wash Dry and WiFi Laundry Center, get ready to toss your clothes above instead of wheeling ’em around.
Replacing perpendicular rows with a straight line, bottom-top formation isn’t the only thing that makes this unassuming laundry in a suburban strip center stand out. Here, the currencies of choice are physical coins and virtual credits, transacted with a flick of the wrist or a tap of the smartphone screen.
Bi-level design and dual pay defines Wash Dry and WiFi: where stack meets app.
“My goal was to start a stack washer-dryer Laundromat so that I wasn’t paying an excessive amount of rent,” says Kline, who showcases his prototype in a 20-foot-wide storefront northeast of Detroit. “We almost built a 2,400-square-foot Laundromat, but we’ve got about three-quarters of that equipment into 1,200 square feet so it made a lot more sense for us.”
Tiering machines is nothing new. Tumbler baskets have a long history of being placed on top of each other in a bid to save space and have become ubiquitous in the industry. And now the stack washer-dryer, long familiar in domestic and apartment complex laundry rooms, has gone multi-load and found floor space where by-the-square-foot usually comes with a hefty price tag.
Kline’s project is an all-stacked affair with the exception of a pair of solo 90-pound washers. Unlike the ultra-compact stores dotting the map across Asia, this Americanized version boasts greater capacity laid out in spacious, well-appointed surroundings.
CANDIDATES FOR SPACE-SAVING SETUP
Wash Dry and WiFi draws from Utica’s mix of apartment complexes, starter homes, and a scattering of duplexes and senior and low-income housing. Five hotels are also located within two miles of the store.
Kline points to suburbs and rural towns as good candidates for the space-saving setup.
“The stack washer-dryer format lends itself to putting it in a middle-class or upper-middle-class area,” he says. “You have enough customers to cover your expenses and make money — not just make payments.”
Wash Dry and WiFi took the place of a long-shuttered taqueria. The space was brought back to four walls and the slab removed in an 8-foot-wide swath extending the length of the premises. Utility feeds were all undersized, necessitating new 2 ½-inch water overhead, 400-amp/3-phase power and a larger gas line.
The machinery’s straight run minimized mechanical buildout and called for only a single pitched trough for drainage discharge. A supplemental heating system, designed to keep exposed water lines flowing in the fresh air-fed back area during below-zero winter days, hasn’t had to be called into action, the owner reports.
Building a business is familiar territory for the 53-year-old Kline. He grew up in the family’s well-established medical supply house before forming Detergent Solutions, a Sterling Heights-based commercial chemical and janitorial products distributorship that eventually branched into on-premise and vended laundry equipment sales and installations. Four years ago, the family-run enterprise welcomed the Dexter product line.
DUAL PAY FOR TWO-TIERED APPROACH
It was at Clean ’15 that bi-level laundry clicked for Kline. There was success overseas and a new higher-capacity 50-pound stack washer-dryer model moving into production. With the first eight coming off the line earmarked for his store, he pulled the trigger.
As the inaugural prototype began taking shape, attention turned to another critical format: payment. The operator saw firsthand the non-cash-carrying habits of his own grown children and realized his new venture had to accept more than just coin.
“I thought cell phones and millennials are a natural fit,” Kline says of his motivation to bring a dual pay format to his two-tiered machine setup.
“I’m a geek myself,” he admits, citing his launch of self-built websites. “I know if you embrace technology, you can make a better business for yourself. If people don’t use cell phone technology in the next five years, I think they’re going to be left behind.”
Kline reached out to Butch Bruner of Imonex ClearToken, who had integrated a smartphone pay app into his firm’s coin-drop controller. The opportunity to offer both higher-denomination coin acceptance and phone pay at machines vending as high as $12 per cycle was appealing and convinced him to move forward, he recalls.
“In my mind, I should be able to accept any form of payment and then the customer should decide how they want to pay.”
Wash Dry and WiFi customers can opt to download the free ClearToken app, load virtual credits onto their smartphones using credit and debit cards or cash, and enable their device’s built-in Bluetooth technology to communicate with any of the store’s 32 machines and redeem the quarter-increment credits for payment.
The cash-to-credits loading option allows smartphone users who have no credit cards the same access as cardholders, a feature the operator promotes through in-house signage and word-of-mouth. The over-the-counter transactions also eliminate credit card processing fees, Kline notes.
New and returning customers can receive generous bonus incentives during self-loading or assisted loading of credits.
First-time patron Vanessa Mackey was drawn to the laundry on a particular Saturday morning after reading favorable Yelp reviews online. The visit was rewarded with a $5 promotional bonus added to her new account by attendant Niyah Ward.
With three washers loaded and cycle selections made, Mackey let her index finger complete each machine transaction on the phone screen with taps of the corresponding alphanumeric color-coded band and the pay button.
“I think it’s more convenient,” she remarks, making her way down the line. “The app was pretty easy.”
For traditional coin customers, dollar coins are dispensed along with quarters at the twin hopper changer and accepted in any washer or dryer. Kline says the higher-denomination dollar coins significantly reduce the number of insertions required to activate his laundry’s multi-load machines and are welcomed by patrons.
While he admits some do a double take when they receive the golden-colored dollar coins, there is a silver lining: “It’s good because they get to meet all the presidents.”
Miss Part 1? You can read it HERE.
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