Company targets Baltimore for six 'wet cleaning' stores
Baltimore Business Journal - July 28, 2006
Staff
Miele Inc., a large clothes cleaning equipment manufacturer, plans to open six new locations in Baltimore this year.
Rudie Smit, business manager for New Jersey-based Miele, said his company will either renovate existing dry cleaning stores and replace their equipment with "wet cleaning" equipment or start new stores. Wet cleaning machines use water as the main cleaning solvent rather than the traditional dry cleaning chemicals.
Miele hired Corridor Reznick LLC, a Baltimore branch of a national real estate company, to find 15,000-square-foot to 19,000-square-foot stores in new shopping centers.
The goal is to have a dozen environmentally friendly wet cleaning shops statewide by the end of the year.
In a franchise-style arrangement, Miele charges store owners between $175,000 and $200,000 to purchase all equipment needed to clean clothes using the wet cleaning process. The cost for existing dry cleaners that already have boilers and drying rooms that could be used for either dry or wet cleaning generally ranges from $40,000 to $80,000 to switch over to wet cleaning equipment, Smit said.
Miele opened its first store in the Baltimore area more than two years ago. The company, which has 41 locations across the country, plans to add 19 more total stores this year in major metropolitan areas such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and San Francisco.
Miele's expansion process starts by opening one store in a region that is used as a demonstration site. The company then invites potential franchisees into the facility to see, feel, smell and touch the wet cleaning process, Smit said.
Many dry cleaners are showing growing interest in wet cleaning, said Paul Yulee of Pishon Equipment in Rockville. Yulee sells both wet and dry cleaning equipment. Since he began selling wet cleaning equipment two years ago, it has become 60 percent of his business, Yulee said. "A lot of people are asking about wet machines," he added. "I receive about 10 questions a day."
Wet cleaning machines cost $38,000, or approximately $17,000 less than traditional dry cleaning equipment that starts at $55,000, Yulee said.
Of the 32,000 cleaners in the United States, only a few are using the new wet cleaning process, said Jon Meijer, vice president of membership with the International Fabricare Institute, an association for professional dry cleaners based in Laurel.
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