Serial car wash developer Bill Martin, of Boise, has launched a $5.5 million construction project in Coeur d’Alene for a Metro Express Car Wash outlet, which he says will bring the latest improvements in automated washing systems to customers in the Lake City.

Metro Express will be located on 1.5 acres of land at 3131 Conference Drive, just east of U.S. 95 about a half-mile north of Interstate 90.

Initial site work is under way, and construction is expected to be completed in March, Martin says in a press release about the project.

Young Construction Group of Idaho Inc., of Hayden, is the contractor on the project, and Howa Design Inc., of Boise, designed it. The structure will be erected using concrete tilt-up panels that will be poured on site, Martin says.

The tunnel—an enclosed washing lane—will be 240 feet long. At capacity, it will clean about four cars a minute—and up to 2,500 cars a day, Martin says. Metro Express also will have 28 vacuum stations for customers to use at no extra charge.

Metro Express will have eight to 10 employees, he says.

Martin boasts that Metro Express will be comparable in price to a service-station wash, as thorough as a hand wash, and faster than both.

Washes at the Coeur d’Alene store will range in price from $8 to $12, he says.

Martin, now 70, has been in the car wash business for more than 40 years. He has owned more than a dozen car washes in Washington, Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri.

In Spokane in the 1990s, he developed Nu Look Car Wash, which has since been acquired by Tucson, Ariz.-based Mister Car Wash, a national chain that Martin also helped found.

Martin started Metro Express in Boise in 2004 and grew it to three outlets in southern Idaho before selling them last year to Mister Car Wash.