Former tourism office site will get Take 5 oil-change business
This site of the former home of the Anderson County Tourism Council will soon hold a Take 5 10-minute oil-change shop. The log cabin has been sold and will be moved from the site. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Signs recently posted at the front of the lot along North Charles G. Seivers Boulevard, next to the Golden Girls Restaurant indicate the new business is coming.
The owner of the property, John Davenport, said the oil-change location should open next March.
“The cabin has been sold and we’re trying to get that moved,” said Davenport, who is a Jellico-based developer who bought the property from Anderson County last July for $706,750, according to county property records.
The official address of the nearly half-acre lot is 115 Welcome Lane.
“I will be developing the site for them,” Davenport said of Take 5, a regional chain of oil-change and car-wash locations based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He said the company recently opened one of the Take 5 oil-change locations in Powell.
The company calls it “The Stay in Your Car 10-Minute Oil Change.”
According to its website, take5.com, the company was founded in 1984 in Louisiana as Rapid Oil Change.
“It offered quick oil changes, minor repairs and other maintenance services,” the website says. “Since then, it has seen expansion, faced disaster and become part of the community.”
In 1996, the company “launched the first stay-in-your-car oil change. The shops featured shallow pits, drive through oil changes, synchronized oil changes, and fast, friendly service,” according to the website.
It now has 60 locations in “eight states across the southeastern United States from Virginia to Texas … with five more shops opening in the coming months. Among the newest locations is the first Take 5 in Florida,” the website notes.
All stores are company owned; there are no franchised operations yet.
Take 5 launched its car-wash business in 2020. There are no indications that the Clinton Take 5 will include a car wash. The new Tidal Wave Auto Spa opened in November just a few doors down from the planned Take 5 site, and there already was a car wash nearby on the opposite site of Seivers Boulevard.
As for Davenport, he recently built a Family Dollar store in Jellico, and is working on new Dunkin’ Donuts and Dollar Tree stores in LaFollette. He said he’s also developing the new Department of Corrections training center in Clinton’s Eagle Bend Industrial Park.