“We just needed more room,” he said.
The company sells several brands of tires and services passenger vehicles, light trucks, commercial, agriculture and industrial vehicles. It offers services including brakes, shocks, struts, alignments, transmission service and tune-ups.
The business also owns a building across Overland Avenue from the new store, which will be kept as inventory storage and they will likely sell the current building once they move to the new location. The current building is a block south of the new one.
The old grocery store, which Wickels purchased in 2019, was gutted to the studs, except for the upstairs portion. There are several offices and a storage area upstairs and the main level was split and retrofitted on each side with multiple bays for mechanical, tires and lube work.
An office and customer waiting area was built in the center between the two work stations.
The customer waiting room will have a convenience center offering coffee, water and vending machines and a children’s playroom with a short doorway that was his 6-year-old daughter Jakoy Wickel’s idea.
“She says she’s going to sell chocolate milk in there,” he said.
The 23,000 square-feet building will have multiple bays on each side, lots of new equipment and one of the biggest pull-through service pits for semi-trucks in the state, Wickel said.