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Photo by Jon Anderson
Tom Spies, president of LIV Ventures, talks to residents of the Rocky Ridge community about his proposal for a New Day Car Wash and Bullet coffee shop at 2534 and 2530 Rocky Ridge Road during a community meeting at the Vestavia Hills Civic Center on Monday, April 27, 2026.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Tom Spies, president of LIV Ventures, talks to residents of the Rocky Ridge community about his proposal for a New Day Car Wash and Bullet coffee shop at 2534 and 2530 Rocky Ridge Road during a community meeting at the Vestavia Hills Civic Center on Monday, April 27, 2026.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Tom Spies, president of LIV Ventures, talks to residents of the Rocky Ridge community about his proposal for a New Day Car Wash and Bullet coffee shop at 2534 and 2530 Rocky Ridge Road during a community meeting at the Vestavia Hills Civic Center on Monday, April 27, 2026.
A developer’s proposal to build a car wash and coffee shop on Rocky Ridge Road in Vestavia Hills continues to garner serious opposition from the community.
About 75 people showed up at a community meeting at the Vestavia Hills Civic Center on Monday night to meet with the developer about his plans, and the vast majority indicated they didn’t like the proposal.
Liv Ventures is proposing to build a New Day Car Wash and Bullet coffee shop on 2.4 acres at 2534 and 2530 Rocky Ridge Road, behind the Rocky Ridge Square shopping center that contains a Publix. But numerous nearby residents say a car wash doesn’t fit the neighborhood feel of the community and would add to traffic congestion that already exists.
The property is currently owned by Tom Allen and contains an office building. The part with the office building already is zoned as a B-2 business district, but a second parcel currently is zoned for residential use.
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Map courtesy of city of Vestavia
LIV Ventures is seeking approval from the city of Vestavia Hills to put a New Day Car Wash at 2534 Rocky Ridge Road, directly north of the Publix shopping center, and a Bullet coffee shop at 2530 Rocky Ridge Road.
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Sketch courtesy of LIV Ventures
LIV Ventures is seeking permission to build a New Day Car Wash at 2534 Rocky Ridge Road and a Bullet coffe shop at 2530 Rocky Ridge Road in Vestavia Hills, Alabama.
Liv Ventures maintains that the site already is surrounded by established commercial and automotive-related uses, including a Chevron gasoline station immediately to the north and an Express Oil Change & Tire Engineers nearby.
A car wash is compatible with these adjacent properties and would incorporate high-quality architecture and enhanced landscaping to improve the overall appearance of the corridor, the company said in its rezoning application to the city.
Tom Spies, president of LIV Ventures, told the crowd on Monday night that Rocky Ridge Road already generates 11,326 vehicles a day. His company expects a car wash at that site would draw about 350 customers a day and that 75% of them would be people already traveling that stretch of road.
Even if all the customers were new to the road, that would increase traffic by only 3%, Spies said.
His company also would pay to widen Rocky Ridge Road in that area and add a left turn lane to assist in traffic flow, he said.
Several residents said the city’s plan is to give Rocky Ridge a “village” feel and said a car wash doesn’t fit that vibe. Other residents have noted that Mountain Chapel Methodist Church is just across the street from the property and said car wash traffic would interfere with traffic related to the church’s preschool.
Spies said he lives only about 1.5 miles from the site and said his company wants to be a good neighbor. Engineers have designed the site so that vehicles waiting to go through the car wash would not stack up onto Rocky Ridge Road, he said.
Some residents said they also were concerned about noise from the car wash, including vacuums and music on loudspeakers. Spies said proposed operating hours would be 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
There also were some environmental concerns, but an engineer for the developer said the water from the car wash itself would go into the sewer system and not be dispersed into the nearby creek. Groundwater from rain would go into two stormwater holding ponds and be distributed into the creek at rates less than what is coming from the property now, the engineer said.
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Photo courtesy of LIV Ventures
LIV Ventures is proposing to build a car wash similar to this one in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the Rocky Ridge community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama.
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Photo courtesy of the city of Vestavia Hills
A New Day Car Wash similar to this one is being proposed for 2534 Rocky Ridge Road in Vestavia Hills, Alabama.
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Photo courtesy of LIV Ventures
LIV Ventures is proposing to build a car wash similar to this one in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the Rocky Ridge community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama.
Spies said if the city did not approve a car wash as a “conditional use” for the property, there are many other uses that already are allowed under the B-2 zoning the property already has, including a gas station, auto repair shop, laundromat or fast-food restaurant. “Be careful what you ask for,” he advised the crowd.
One woman in the audience said she wants local businesses like LIV Ventures to be successful, but in this case, in order for the company to be successful, nearby residents would have to be miserable.
Spies said he knows he won’t be able to persuade everyone to be happy with the proposal, but his company wanted to listen directly to residents’ concerns and try to address as many of them as they can.
The rezoning request originally was slated to be heard by the Vestavia Hills Planning and Zoning Commission on April 9, but Spies and his team asked for a continuance so they could meet with the community. After Monday’s meeting, Spies said his team would evaluate how they want to proceed from here.
The next meeting of the zoning board is scheduled for May 14, but it’s not clear yet whether this proposal will be back on the agenda for that meeting.
