A vacant retail store at the intersection of Florida Boulevard and N. Acadian Thruway is under redevelopment and will be the site of car wash and detailing business that is slated to open late this year or in early 2021.
Raising Cane’s owner Todd Graves and local CPA Robert Daigrepont, through their Clean Ride LLC, acquired the acre property at 3445 Florida Blvd. last April for $405,000.
They, in turn, have leased it to Melvin Hardnett, who owns and operates a small chauffeur business, Geaux Limeaux. He plans to open a hand wash car wash and detailing business, eventually adding an express service that he hopes will employ several dozen local workers.
“I wanted to open something that would give people who want to work hard an opportunity and that would help create jobs for the area,” he says.
Hardnett says the business, Mel’s Car Wash, will be a “fun” place for employees and patrons, alike, and will be safe, well lit and well landscaped. He plans to start by offering detailing and hand wash services initially and hopes to add equipment for express wash services—which costs more than $1 million to purchase and install—before too long.
Hardnett, who knows Graves through his chauffeur business, says Graves and Daigrepont were instrumental in helping him secure financing for the project from the bank of St. Francisville and have encouraged him every step of the way.
“Todd kept telling me to hang in here,” says Hardnett, a self-made business owner, who grew up in a family of 17 siblings. “He said, ‘Melvin you’re a nice guy. Someone is going to believe in you. Don’t give up.’”
Hardnett also plans to relocate his chauffeur business to the Florida Boulevard site, and hopes to eventually employ some of his car wash employees as drivers, especially during rainy days and slow times.
Mayor Sharon Weston Broome referenced the business in her annual State of the City address Wednesday as an example of a major economic development coming to Florida Boulevard.
