Plans for Car Wash Could Clean Up Former Star Room Property

If a new application is approved at the old Star Room property in Wainscott, the only music neighbors may need to worry about is the disco-era classic.

Last week, the East Hampton Town Planning Board reviewed a preliminary site plan for a car wash — which would be the first full service car wash in the Town of East Hampton — on the long-vacant Montauk Highway property just west of the Wainscott Shopping Village.

Jeffrey Schneider and Tom Barton are contemplating building Hamptons Wash on the property that housed a nightclub under several different names including Star Room, SWA, and The Swamp, often a bane to neighbors, who complained about noise and traffic. The club has been closed for about five years and the property remains on the market for sale with Enzo Morabito at Prudential Douglas Elliman for $2.495 million.

Schneider and Barton want to remove the existing dilapidated barn and construct a 5,400-square-foot building, mainly for an automated car wash and four detail bays. An 800-square-foot office is planned above.

The property is listed as 1.22 acres and has two separate structures totalling more than 5,000 square feet and has about 75 parking spaces.

Schneider told the board that there's a need for such a car wash in the town. The closest full service wash is on County Road-39 in Southampton. There is a very small car wash behind the Shell station in Amagansett. "I'm not sure why no one has ever tried to open a car wash before," he said.

"We've been talking about this for a few years," he said. Barton is already in the buisness, running a mobile washing and detailing service.

The idea received overall support from the board, though some questions will have to be answered at later meetings, such as how the groundwater reservoir will be protected from pollution and the impact traffic to and from a car wash will have on the residential neighborhood.

Twenty-foot wide entrances/exits are proposed for Montauk Highway and East Gate Road.

The car wash would see about 150 cars in one day, according to Daniel Bell of Ziposhine, a car wash sales equipment and service company, who the applicants hired as a consultant.

"The car wash process will be the most automated car wash, probably, on the island," he told the board. He estimated 90 percent of the work will be done by machine and 12 employees will be on site. "The employees are there for vacuuming the car and basically doing the inside of the windows and that's it," he said. "We can be very efficient with our labor."

The water will be recycled, he said. The equipment will recycle 160,000 gallons a minute. "I don't have any car wash I've ever done that actually uses that much water," Bell told the board.

Bell said areas without curbing tend to have dirtier cars. Settling tanks will hold 1,500 gallons of water to separate sands and dirt with centrifugal separators and pump the water back up when necessary.

He said the water will be treated as if they were a sewer company — breaking it down to five microbes. "I wouldn't drink it, but it does give you the quality of wash that customers expect," he said, adding that the chemicals from EcoLab, a national company, will be used.

While Schneider said he wasn't sure of the exact hours of operation, he assured the board it would be a daylight-hours business only.

Board member Diana Weir, who lives just a few blocks over on West Gate Road, said she's in support of the application so far. "First of all it's an eyesore right now," she said of the property. "It has been a very contentious site because it was a disco, a bar and a restaurant. That traffic was horrendous," she said, adding that limos used to line the streets.

Board member Bob Schaeffer, who lives in Wainscott, said he looks forward to seeing more details for a lighting plan and landscaping plan, particularly screening on Ardsley and East Gate Road, which are residential streets.

He also feel a traffic study should be completed. The property is 550-feet from Wainscott Retail, which is the former Plitt Ford building where Whole Foods set up shop for the summer. A 17,000-square-foot building has been approved for that property.

The application will also be forwarded to the State Department of Transportation, as it is on a state road, and the Suffolk County Department of Health.

The proposal is for the building to be set back from the highway, though the planning board prefers the parking not be seen from the street. Instead, the parking comes within few feet of the highway.

The applicants have proposed 29 parking spaces, four more than is required under the code, and 12 cueing lanes, four more than required under the code.

Schaeffer questioned whether so many parking spaces were actually necessary. "I realize it's a requirement, but I do go to Southampton from time to time — I have the dirtiest car in the Hamptons — you don't see cars parked, they're sitting in the lot and then they leave," he said.

Patrick Schutte questioned why the building has to be back at the back of the property with the parking visible from the streets. He also said he had some concerns over the noise the machines cause.

Bell explained that the driers will be inside the building — one of the reasons for it having to be between 135 and 150 feet long. He said he could supply the board with more information on the decibel levels of the machines, but insisted, "If you were standing on Ardsley Road you probably won't hear anything from the car wash."

Schutte also felt differently about the traffic analysis. "The traffic can't get any worse. I would never vote for a traffic study because it's a waste of money."

Bell also noted that in his business he has found that people don't normally go out just to go to the car wash; they do it as part of other errands they are running in town.

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