Crew Carwash taking over former CVS site

Indianapolis-based Crew Carwash plans to build a carwash at the corner of 38^th and Illinois streets, replacing a CVS store that closed there in January.

Katherine Rayner, marketing project coordinator at Crew, said the company hopes to break ground on the project by the end of this year, and if all goes according to schedule that means the carwash would open in the spring of 2021.

“We’re full-speed ahead,” Rayner said of the project. “It’s in a great up-and-coming area.”

The property is at 111 W. 38^th St., on the southwest corner of the intersection of 38^th and Illinois streets.

Plans filed with the city indicate Crew plans to demolish the former drugstore to make way for a 5,764-square-foot carwash on the 1.28-acre site. Projected construction cost is $1.64 million.

In July, the city’s Metropolitan Development Commission voted 7-1 to approve the variances necessary for Crew to proceed with the project. City staff had recommended denying the request, noting that the city’s comprehensive land use plans recommends pedestrian-friendly village mixed-use development for the site.

In a separate project, Crew is upgrading its facility at 10764 E. U.S. 36 in Avon. The company plans to add an Xpress Interior Clean service at that site. It will be the second store in the chain to feature an interior cleaning option, in which employees speed-clean a car’s interior as it moves along a conveyor belt. Crew debuted the concept in 2018 in Noblesville, near Exit 210 on Interstate 69.

Crew has 34 locations around Indiana and will open its 35^th  this fall in the northwest Indiana town of St. John.

In other news this week:

— Greenwood’s Stage to Screen Catered Cabaret at 916 E. Main St. has closed permanently due to COVID-19, less than a year after moving to that location.

Owner Chris Tompkins started the dinner theater in a small space in downtown Greenwood in 2018. Last fall he relocated to the Main Street space, which at 8,500 square feet was more than double the size of the original location.

Tompkins announced the closure on Stage to Screen’s Facebook page July 31. He said the theater had reconfigured its stage and seating area to provide for social distancing and had planned to reopen, but ticket sales were too low.

“Bottom line: 90% of patrons with tickets chose to wait until spring of 2021 to return and there were only 24 tickets sold for 60 performances,” Tompkins wrote. “That has never happened even at the beginning of the company’s first show.

Without enough money to cover expenses, Tompkins said, the theater was forced to close. “This personally breaks my heart,” he wrote.

— The Mass Ave Merchants Association says more than 20 merchants are signed up to participate in its annual sidewalk sale, which takes place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Much of the street is still closed to traffic, but all-day event parking is available for $5 at Old National Centre, 502 N. New Jersey St. The entertainment venue will also participate in the event by offering live music, food trucks and drinks from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. in its parking lot.

And finally, we have news about two locally owned burger spots opening on the south side.

— Prodigy Burger & Bar has a soft opening this weekend and a grand opening Monday at 8923 S. Meridian St., in the Meridian Marketplace shopping center just north of County Line Road. The restaurant is in a 6,000-square-foot space at the north end of the shopping center that was formerly occupied by O’Reilly’s Pub.

Prodigy opened its first restaurant in October 2017 at the Clay Terrace shopping center in Carmel, followed by a Kokomo store in 2018. The restaurant is owned by Indianapolis-based O’Reilly’s Holdings LLC, which has Keith Reilly as majority owner and David Castor as one of several other investors.

— Indy’s Burger Joint has opened at 5015 E. Stop 11 Road, just west of Emerson Avenue and St. Francis Hospital. The restaurant, which had its grand opening Aug. 10, takes over the spot formerly occupied by Diana’s Diner.