Owners of The Smart Car Wash, Being Built in Woodbridge, VA, Attend 'Stimulus in Action' Presidential Speech at the White House

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Feb 18, 2010, 12:52 ET

WOODBRIDGE, Va., Feb. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The ownership of The Smart Car Wash, which is expected to be the world's first full-service car wash with US Green Building Council's LEED Certification, was invited to the White House and attended President Obama's speech Wednesday on the one-year anniversary of the Economic Recovery Act. The Smart Car Wash received federal assistance through a Small Business Administration (SBA) 504 lending program which helped them to break ground in December in Woodbridge, Virginia and will bring new green jobs to the community this year.

"Congress provided Recovery Act funding for Small Business Administration loan programs with the hope that entrepreneurs would have the opportunity to open their own small businesses and create jobs for their local economies," Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said in December. "The Smart Car Wash LEED certified facility, financed by the SBA's 504 lending program, does exactly that by creating new jobs, increasing the local tax base, and stimulating the Prince William County economy. I commend the Smart Car Wash team for their entrepreneurial spirit and environmental stewardship."

In addition to creating new jobs in Prince William County, the business will provide high quality auto cleaning at an affordable price while "raising the bar" for environmental stewardship in the car wash industry. The LEED-certified building, with construction underway by Mike Garcia Construction (lifelong Woodbridge residents) is being built from the "ground up" with a focus on sustainability, including: reclaiming and re-using over 90 percent of the water for carwash operations; reducing noise and light pollution; using Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) technology for most equipment to reduce power consumption by 50 percent; selecting only carwash chemicals that are bio-friendly and eliminating the need for hydraulic devices, which have the potential to contaminate the environment.

"We were honored to be invited to the White House as just one of the many stories of the Recovery Act," said part-owner/investor Taryn Rosenkranz. "Our business is truly representative of what the Recovery Act is trying to accomplish, we are not only bringing new jobs to the area, but even better green new jobs. Now if only some of this snow would melt we could get construction back on track!"

The Smart Car Wash broke ground in December just a few weeks before the back-to-back blizzards that have hit the Washington, D.C. suburbs so hard. Despite the weather, the Smart Car Wash expects to open as expected in summer 2010 bringing an anticipated 15 new green jobs to the community.