Hoffman Car Wash in Delmar temporarily closed over landslide concerns

DELMAR, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The doors of Hoffman Car Wash and Jiffy Lube in Delmar are closed Monday but it’s not because of Columbus Day. The business was forced to temporarily closed due to landslide concerns in the parking lot area.

Bethlehem Town Attorney Jim Potter said the parking lot area near the building may be at risk of falling in. Furthermore, this isn’t the first time slope failure was a concern in the area. Back in 2000, the land fell in and a building collapsed.

“The toe of the slope was eroded by the Normans kill, and when the toe was eroded the slope gave way,” said Potter. “I believe the State of New York came in, rerouted the Normans kill so that issue would not reoccur.”

Since then, the slope has been stable. However, monitoring started back up again about three years ago. This time, Potter said he doesn’t have any reason to believe the concerns have anything to do with the Normans kill. Both Hoffman Car Wash, the National Grid and the Town of Bethlehem hired engineers to monitor the situation.

“Last week we received a report that the slope was at a geotechnical engineering slope rating of 1.0, meaning that the forces of stability are equal to the forces of instability so there is a potentially unstable slope there,” said Potter.

They found a crack that was 23-feet deep in the parking lot, which was also where the ground had slightly shifted — creating a downward slope. The CEO of Hoffman Car Wash, Tim Hoffman Jr. said all of this started happening quickly.

“This was pretty sudden; we got a call for the code enforcement person at the town of Bethlehem to attend a meeting on Friday,” said Hoffman. “When we met on Friday, we were informed that they would be closing our business at 6 p.m. Sunday night in anticipation of the nor’easter rain event.”

While the engineers are still unsure what could be causing the slight ground shift, Potter said the rain could be a possible factor.

“My understanding is that if there is added weight to the slope. For example, in the event of a heavy rainfall, that can add weight to the slope. That can also affect the subsurface geology, so that is one of the areas of concern,” said Potter.

However, there are still a lot of questions.

“If there were to be a failure plane, is it going to fail at the area of the cracked pavement? Is it going to extend further into the parking area and the internal roads for the business? Once that determination is made, then we can reevaluate whether the business can be operated safely,” said Potter.

In the meantime, Hoffman said customers are more than welcome to go to the nearby Hoffman Car Wash locations.

“The customers of Hoffman Car Wash that have our unlimited washing plan can still use their plan at any of our other locations and those customers that only wash at the Delmar location, will not be charged going forward until we figured out a plan to open the car wash,” said Hoffman.

Engineers are expected to continue monitoring this property and hopefully make a decision as soon as possible on the fate of the business.