The Duke’s Auto Electric & General Repair building has been vacant for years. (Mike Platania photo)
After literally getting a taste of Church Hill, Mark Smith is now planning his sixth Midas of Richmond location at a long-dormant auto shop site in the neighborhood.
The owner of the local franchise of the car care chain confirmed he is under contract to buy the former Duke’s Auto Electric & General Repair property at the corner of East Broad and North 21st streets, where Smith said he hopes to open in mid-2024.
Mark Smith
Smith said he plans to rehab the existing auto shop building after he closes on the property in about a month. He said he’s set to pay $1.65 million for the site, which is owned by a group of local investors, including developer Zac Frederick.
The group bought the property six years ago for $925,000 and put it up for sale last year with an asking price of $1.8 million. Frederick’s Crescent Development had secured entitlements for an 18-unit residential infill of for-sale condos and townhomes, but the developer said last year he was letting the project go to focus on multifamily rental development.
Reached Tuesday, Frederick declined to comment on the Midas deal.
Smith, who teased the location in a LinkedIn post Tuesday afternoon, said the site came to his attention while searching for Sub Rosa, the Church Hill bakery whose bread he had just tasted for the first time.
Smith posted this photo on LinkedIn with the caption: ‘My new favorite view of the Richmond skyline — from the parking lot of the location we will soon open in Church Hill!’
“A buddy of mine brought a loaf of bread over to my house for a group dinner we had that I fell in love with. I said, ‘Where is this from?’ And he said, ‘Sub Rosa,’ which I’d heard of but I’ve never been to,” Smith said.
Later, when he was downtown with 30 minutes to kill, Smith said, “I plugged ‘Sub Rosa’ into my tracker in the truck, and it took me right by this property. I turned around, jotted the number down, called Brian Berkey, the broker I work with, and about 40 hours later we had it under contract.”
Smith said the deal is scheduled to close in late September or early October. The day after it does, he said he’ll have eight loaner cars and two staffers on site with signs that’ll read: “Midas of Church Hill is open…kind of,” with the loaners offered for discounted service on brakes and tires.
“I’m literally doing business from Day 1,” he said.
Smith said he had looked at four other properties in the Church Hill area but could never get a deal together. Berkey, an agent with Thalhimer, represented him in the deal for the Duke’s Auto site. Lory Markham and Tom Rosman with One South Commercial represented the sellers.
The nearly half-acre site consists of three parcels at 2012 and 2018 E. Broad St. and 304 N. 21st St. The city assessed the parcels at nearly $1.18 million combined.
The Midas of Richmond storefront along Arthur Ashe Boulevard opened in 2020. (BizSense file photo)
Smith said he plans to put as much as $1.5 million into improvements to the property, with new landscaping added and renovations to the existing building to include a new roof, decking and paint.
He’s working with architecture firm Baskervill, which also designed the newest Midas space on Arthur Ashe Boulevard. He said a general contractor for the Church Hill site hasn’t been selected.
Smith said he’s hoping to fully open the location next summer. It would be the sixth Midas location in Central Virginia, with shops in metro Richmond and Colonial Heights. Smith said he’s eyeing additional sites for potential stores in Petersburg and Henrico’s Parham-Patterson area.
“There’ll be more stores,” he said.
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