Due to an increase in homeless activity around the business premises, a lack of parking, and traffic growth on Third Avenue, Steve Cozzetto says he recently moved his 44-year-old laundry machine servicing business out of downtown Spokane to a larger site about three miles north.
“It was a combination of all those factors,” says Cozzetto, who runs Cozzetto Coin-Op LLC, which does business as Cozzetto Commercial Laundry Equipment, now based at 530 E. North Foothills Drive.
Cozzetto says the business, founded by his father Joe Cozzetto in 1976, had operated at 319 W. Third for 20 years.
“It just increasingly became more of a challenge at that location,” he says.
Cozzetto Commercial Laundry Equipment services coin-operated and other commercial laundry machines, he says.
At the new location, the business occupies 7,000 square feet of interior space, which is similar in size to its former shop, although it now offers parking on its larger, 1-acre-plus site. The entire property is fenced, which allows the company to store equipment outside and free up space inside.
The location once served as one of two sites for emergency and nonemergency American Medical Response Inc., Cozzetto says.
Jim Orcutt, of NAI Black, helped negotiate the transaction.
“The downtown building only had one roll-up door. This one has five,” he says. “It’s just a more practical space for what this business does.”
In addition to the Spokane shop, Cozzetto operates stores in Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. The four stores employ about 10 people combined.
Steve Cozzetto earned his civil engineering degree from Washington State University in 1991 and returned to Spokane, where he helped his father grow the business.
“My father started this out as a side business for a second source of income,” Cozzetto says. “For the longest time, the company primarily serviced apartment complexes.”
Today, the company also serves laundromats and health care and hospitality industries.