Developers submitted this rendering showing what a proposed Jax Kar Wash would look like at the corner of 19 Mile and Dequindre roads.
By: Gary Winkelman | Sterling Heights Sentry | Published April 6, 2026
STERLING HEIGHTS — Hit the road, Jax.
That, essentially, was the decision the Sterling Heights Planning Commission made last month to a proposed car wash on the city’s west side.
On March 11, officials voted against rezoning property at the northeast corner of 19 Mile and Dequindre roads that would have converted a vacant Rite Aid into an automated car wash.
Although developers pitched their plan as a unique repurposing of an empty building and solution to an idle site that risks falling into further blight, officials said a car wash is not consistent with the city’s vision for the area and dismissed the idea that the property could not be developed as it is currently zoned. Officials also expressed concerns about traffic and noted how the site is adjacent to a daycare center and posed potentially hazardous conditions for children.
The property is currently zoned as a local convenience business district, which supports uses such as office suites or medical facilities. Developers were seeking to have the parcel rezoned to a general business district, which would have facilitated a Jax Kar Wash.
Attorney Phil Ruggeri told the Planning Commission that the property owners have struggled to find a tenant for the site and hinted that the city’s vision for the property may be unrealistic.
“The market dictates what’s going to go on anywhere,” Ruggeri said. “They have two national brokers trying to sell or lease this property on a large scale … and they are getting no bites for office, for medical, anything along those lines whatsoever. It doesn’t exist. The only inquiries that they have had are for a car wash or gas station.”
Ruggeri also noted how certain land use restrictions agreed to by a previous owner of the property complicates its redevelopment options today.
The proposed car wash, Ruggeri said, is an innovative concept that uses the existing building to create “an image that fits right into the scale of what’s going on in that area.”
“It looks like an office building,” he said. “You have the appearance of fitting in the neighborhood. It makes it harmonious. It does not devalue any of the properties.”
Ruggeri acknowledged that “people have a stigma about car washes,” but said the Jax proposal represents a potential $4 million investment and would upgrade the corner with “a productive development, as opposed to leaving it in the blight situation that it currently is.”
Planning commissioners were not swayed, however, and sent the car wash idea down the drain.
“I think that it can be developed as it’s currently zoned,” said Planning Commissioner Brandy Wright. “I have a lot of issues with traffic stacking and safety concerns that haven’t been addressed.
I also think that, in general, it’s just not consistent with the city’s long-term vision for the area. And it’s just not needed. There are plenty of other car washes within five minutes that someone can get to.”
Background material prepared by the city’s Planning Department, which recommended against rezoning the property, states that “an automobile wash is a more intense use than any of the surrounding uses, and a rezoning to C -3 would constitute unreasonable, and therefore impermissible, spot zoning.”
“This section of the city is zoned for, and developed with, small local convenience commercial uses, office, medical facilities, and single-family homes. The Office of Planning does not believe that the proposed development is harmonious with any of the adjacent land uses nor does the proposal align with any of the adjacent zoning or future land use designations.”
Other corners at the 19 Mile Road and Dequindre intersection contain a 7-Eleven and bank on the Sterling Heights side and an urgent care facility and small shopping plaza on the Troy side of Dequindre.