Something Old, Something New…

By Bob Nieman | Apr 29, 2010

Although the Monroe Laundry Company’s history dates back only to March of last year, the actual building that houses the 3,050-square-foot self-service laundry in Monroe, Wash., traces its roots back more than a century.

“The building is in the old historic part of town,” explained co-owner Tod Johnson. “It was originally built in 1908 as a hotel. Since then it has run the gamut. During Prohibition, it was a speakeasy and a ‘house of ill repute,’ and more recently, it has housed an auto dealership, a television repair business and a nightclub.”

However, the brick building had been vacant for three years before being transformed into Monroe’s only laundromat.

“The building was ugly when we bought it,” said Johnson, who operates the laundry with his daughter, BJ, his son, Scott, and his brother, Jay.

One of their driving reasons for buying the building in the first place was the fact that it has 100 parking spaces available to it in the back of the structure.

“We created two entrances to the building with automatic double doors in the back, where people can park,” Johnson explained. “Customers will stop and come in through the front. But, after they’ve been here a couple of times, they’ll end up coming in through the back.

“How often do you find a 100-year-old building that’s got 100 parking spaces?” he marveled.

Beyond those hundred parking spaces, the Johnson family purchased the building and opened the laundromat because they simply enjoy working together.

“As a family, we love to do things together,” Johnson said. “And we’re able to do that. We bring this wide range of skills into play, which makes our partnership very efficient. You don’t need people that all have the same skills. Plus, I get to do something with my kids and my brother.”

The talent pool within the Johnson family is indeed diverse. Tod was a research engineer for Boeing for several years; however, for the past 35 years, he has run a large construction company that specializes in building high-end installations, such as robotics plants, biomedical facilities and athletic clubs. His brother, Jay, has owned one of the leading Mail Boxes Etc. locations in the country for years, thus bringing an expertise in marketing and customer relations to the team. Son, Scott, has worked in the construction industry for 25 years, and daughter, BJ – who runs the day-to-day operations at Monroe Laundry Company – features a strong financial background in bookkeeping and business management.

The Johnson family first got its feet wet in the coin laundry business with a store in nearby Carnation about two years ago. And, since opening the Monroe laundry in March 2009, they have opened a third, smaller laundromat in Snohomish, about nine miles from Monroe.

But Monroe Laundry Company remains the family’s largest store – and possibly its toughest renovation challenge.

“It was about as bad as you can imagine,” Johnson explained. “It had been very poorly renovated for the nightclub that was in here before. The usage of space was atrocious, and the quality of construction was not really very conducive to this kind of business.”

Solving the structural problems for a 100-year-old building created some interesting challenges.

“Fortunately, with our experience, before we even decided to buy the building, my dad sat down with the city planners and asked them what we needed to do to work within their scope of what they needed us to do to get permits quickly,” BJ explained. “This enabled us to tackle this project without having to fight the city the entire time. You don’t want to buy a half-million-dollar building that you want to put a laundromat into and then have the city tell you that it’s going to cost you another $300,000. At that point, you’re holding onto an empty building you’re trying to sell.”

On the contrary, the city was so determined to help anyone willing to attempt to breathe life into the old downtown business district that it waived all of the permit fees for the construction of the Monroe Laundry Company – a gesture that turned out to worth approximately $4,000.

And the building’s new owners appreciated every penny – especially once they realized that, being on the first floor of the two-story building – they were going to have difficulty getting the exhaust air from their dryers outside the building.

“We don’t have access to the roof,” explained Johnson, whose upstairs tenant is a dentist’s office. “So, we had to install a system that controls the laundry’s dryer exhaust without discharging a lot of lint into the environment, which would cause issues with our HVAC unit and just make us a bad neighbor.”

This system came with a hefty $25,000 price tag, but with no access to vent out the exhaust through the roof or the sidewalls, it was the only option.

“Because of our experience with big construction, we knew we had to solve the technical problem of getting that air out of there,” Johnson said. “Without it, we couldn’t build a laundry in this building. There are no sidewalls, because there are buildings right beside it.”

The Johnsons also spared no expense with the installation of an air conditioning unit. “We felt air conditioning was a natural dehydrator,” Johnson said. “That’s what removes the moisture in the air, along with that laundromat smell. As the HVAC does its job, it dehumidifies the air.”

Despite many of the modern improvements made to the building, the ownership team was mindful of the structure’s long history and did everything possible to remain true to the past – right down to the original concrete flooring.

“We improved what was there to something that it very possibly could have looked like back in the early 1900s,” said Johnson, who noted that the entire process took about five and a half months and cost $1.4 million in all.

“The locals really appreciated that fact that somebody was going to come in and spend money buying the building and renovating it into the laundromat,” he added. “It’s a big contribution to the historic section of downtown Monroe.”

Since the Monroe Laundry Company opened its doors, a new restaurant and an antique store also have opened in the historic downtown area, adding to a revitalized mix of businesses that include a bank, an automotive glass shop, a 7-Eleven, a liquor store and the city museum.

“We have discovered that we turn our customers into pedestrians for an hour and a half,” Johnson said. “And what historic downtown area doesn’t want more pedestrians?”

To grow that pedestrian traffic, the Johnsons were promoting their laundry business even during the construction phase.

“When we were building this, we put together a video presentation that was shown at the local movie theaters for six months,” Johnson explained. “It showed the status of the process. So we kind of prepared the market for what was coming.”

“After we opened, we had a couple of people stand on the side of the road with signs saying, ‘Monroe Laundry Company, Now Open,’” BJ said. “We did this during peak traffic times – first thing in the morning and then at night. Our challenge was letting the market know we were here. The people were very conditioned to not having a laundromat for five years, so we had to reintroduce it to the entire community.”

The card-operated laundry, which is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, also offers a wash-dry-fold service and handles a growing commercial account business.

And with three thriving self-service laundries to its name, the Johnson family won’t rule out opening a fourth store down the road.

“We’ve focused on building capital reserves and on the ability to provide a good experience for our customers,” Johnson said. “If the opportunity presents itself to provide the same kind of service somewhere else in the local area – and if one of our other kids decides that they’d like to be part of this process – we would certainly investigate that.”