Construction is progressing nicely on a new Mister Car Wash on Whitmore Avenue on Ceres’ west side.
Plans call for a 4,000-square-foot car wash with 18 vacuum stalls.
Mister Car Wash has two locations in Ceres (Hatch Road and one at Whitmore and Mitchell), four locations in Turlock, one in Oakdale, two in Riverbank, and five in Modesto. The chain was founded in 1969 in Houston, Texas, and has expanded to over 500 locations in 21 states.
The project was controversial when first proposed in 2023 when Ajmer Gingh Randawa of Mountain House proposed to build the car wash along with a gas station next door to the Flyers station on Whitmore Avenue. Groans went up in the community which felt like Ceres already had too many gas stations and car washes and the Gill family, owners of the Flyers station, filed an appeal of the Dec. 4, 2023 Planning Commission approval of the two projects. The Ceres City Council denied the gas station but allowed the car wash to proceed since it was a permitted use for the zoning.
Randawa originally planned to build a 4,500-square-foot convenience store with 16-pump gas station and 17 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations next to Flyer’s.
In December 2023 the commission voted 5-0 to subdivide 8.66 acres at 1200 E. Whitmore Avenue into five parcels with a car wash on one and gas station and convenience store on the other. Both projects were proposed for parcels fronting Whitmore Avenue west of Flyers while the vacant land to the south would remain earmarked for future commercial uses.
Hardeep Gill, one of Flyers’ owners, said his family wanted to buy the adjacent property in November 2021 with hopes of building a car wash but allegedly then Community Development Director Christopher Hoem told them that a car wash would not be allowed because of noise impacts to nearby residences.
The Gills claim they told the city they would buy the adjacent lands to prevent another gas station from being built there and were told that wouldn’t happen because of the proximity to the Flyers. Given that information, the Gills dropped plans to buy the property “because nobody could compete with us.”
When they learned of the Dec. 4, 2023 commission approval in the Courier, they immediately filed a protest and wondered why they weren’t notified the projects were before the commission.
