Uptown car wash property for sale on changing Tchoupitoulas | Business News

After three decades as a fixture on Tchoupitoulas Street — and two years after becoming the flashpoint of a heated preservation fight — the Uptown Car Wash & Xpress Lube property is being put up for sale, handing the future of one of Uptown’s largest remaining development sites to a new owner.

The 70,000-square-foot site, which occupies most of the block bounded by Tchoupitoulas, Joseph and Octavia streets, is owned by a group of local investors and is being marketed by McEnery Co., a New Orleans-based commercial real estate firm. No asking price has been disclosed.

For the ownership group, led by Andrew Stall, Jonathan Drennan and Kevin Hilbert, the decision reflects a recognition that the land’s value has outgrown the car wash business that has operated there for roughly 30 years.

“They operated the business for a long time, and this is really the next generational step,” said Bill Kearney of the Ehrhardt Group, a public relations firm advising the owners. “As people approached them and expressed interest, they made the difficult decision to look at what the options might be.”

While the car wash has long been a neighborhood staple, Kearney said the owners concluded that its “highest and best use” would likely be determined by another developer.

“How many parcels of land do you see across the city being used as stand-alone car washes these days?” Kearney said. “They’re usually part of something bigger now.”

A preservation bust-up

The sale comes just two years after the property became the center of one of Uptown’s most closely watched land-use disputes, when the owners sought permission to demolish three historic homes on the site to expand the car wash.

The buildings — two late-19th-century Eastlake-style shotgun doubles and a Creole cottage dating to the mid-1800s — were located on a block of Tchoupitoulas Street that falls within a local historic district. Preservation advocates argued the structures had been allowed to deteriorate through years of neglect and accused the owners of attempting “demolition by neglect.”

After the Historic District Landmarks Commission recommended rejecting the request, the New Orleans City Council unanimously approved the demolitions, citing concerns about safety and the heavily commercial character of the surrounding area. The buildings have since been torn down, though the car wash was never expanded.

Former City Council member Joe Giarrusso, whose district included the site, said at the time that the decision reflected the difficult balance between preserving historic architecture and addressing blight and public safety concerns.

A large Uptown platform

Now cleared and marketed for redevelopment, the property stands out as one of the largest contiguous sites left along the Uptown stretch of Tchoupitoulas Street, a corridor that has steadily evolved from port-serving industrial uses to retail, medical and neighborhood-oriented businesses.

“You just don’t get platforms like this Uptown very often,” said Parke McEnery, whose firm is handling the listing. “There aren’t many sites left that can accommodate a significant service or retail presence.”

McEnery said buyers are expected to pursue a full redevelopment of the site rather than reuse the existing car wash, though he emphasized that no specific use is being pitched.

“The sellers really don’t have a vision for what it should be,” McEnery said. “That’s going to be up to the next owner.”

Any proposal, he added, will need to navigate neighborhood concerns that have long shaped development along Tchoupitoulas.

“This is a vocal neighborhood association,” McEnery said. “Part of our job as brokers is to work closely with the neighborhood and come up with something that’s sensitive but still represents the highest and best use of the property.”

One advantage, he said, is the site’s size.

“With 70,000 square feet, you can build a 10,000- or 15,000-square-foot building and still have a lot of parking,” McEnery said. “That helps soften the impact of whatever use ultimately goes there.”

A corridor still in flux

The listing also lands at a moment of uncertainty for the surrounding commercial landscape. Next door, the Riverside Market Shopping Center’s anchor tenant, Winn-Dixie, is widely expected to change as the grocery chain’s parent company, Southeastern Grocers, winds down operations following its acquisition by Aldi.

McEnery said there has been market chatter that the Winn-Dixie space could eventually be repurposed, though no plans have been confirmed.

Auburndale Properties, the New Jersey-based owner of the shopping center did not respond to requests for comment.

The speculation underscores the degree to which Tchoupitoulas Street, particularly through the Irish Channel and Uptown, remains a corridor in transition.

Once lined with manufacturers, warehouses and port-related businesses, the street has gradually shifted over the past several decades toward serving nearby residential neighborhoods. Former industrial buildings now house breweries, fitness studios, specialty retailers and food producers, while large-scale infrastructure projects in the 1990s separated the corridor from the port that once defined it.

That evolution has accelerated in pockets, but unevenly, leaving stretches of the street — including the block where the car wash sits — poised between past and future.

Next chapter, new developer

For the car wash owners, the decision to sell reflects both the changing character of the corridor and the increasing scarcity of large redevelopment sites Uptown.

“They’ve coexisted with this neighborhood for a long time,” Kearney said. “But things have changed, and the market has changed.”

Asked whether the owners have any preference for what ultimately replaces the car wash, Kearney was unequivocal.

“They really don’t,” he said. “That’s for the next owner to decide — how they invest their funds and what they envision for the property.”