Owner of south county’s only public laundromat says repairs are almost done and should reopen within weeks

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews

WALDPORT – After weeks of frustration and months of waiting for repairs, the only public laundromat in south Lincoln County should reopen by the end of January.

Sweet Homes Vacation Getaways, which bought the SudSea laundromat two years ago, was forced to close it in December after repeated breakdowns, trouble finding contractors to do repairs, and as it waited for the arrival of new washing machines.

“It just came to a point where it just wasn’t working well anymore,” said Todd Korgan of Yachats, Sweet Homes’ co-owner and chief executive officer. “The plan was always to keep it open to the public.”

Frustration went public late last month when laundromat users took to Facebook to complain about the closure, generating more than 100 comments on the Waldport Community page.

Sweet Homes finally noticed the comment thread and responded, telling people that the facility wasn’t operating properly, new machines were arriving any day, repairs were underway and the facility would reopen soon.

“ … we came to the realization that repair was not a good option for us or our laundromat customers,” Korgan said in his Facebook post. “We changed plans and dug in for more significant remodeling at the SudSea. We have purchased a number of new machines, we have re-plumbed the entire laundromat, we have repaired the floors, and we have installed new hot water heaters to ensure consistent and available hot water washes.”

Sweet Homes continues to use the facility at night to do laundry for its vacation rental business. Contractors are there working during the day.

Korgan told YachatsNews that initially it had trouble finding someone locally to repair the washers and dryers, then hired someone in the Willamette Valley who was constantly driving over to fix machines. They finally decided to replace the old washers with new, commercial machines – which were hard to find because of pandemic-caused supply chain issues.

With the new washers ready to install, Korgan said they decided to close to the public to allow contractors to complete their work uninterrupted.

“It’s temporary,” he said.

Korgan estimated the cost of the laundromat renovation to be $100,000.

Sweet Homes bought the laundromat seeking an in-house solution to its growing business. It originally purchased a small laundromat in Yachats that is now part of the Drift Inn, then moved the work to its Yachats rental office as it expanded.

The company bought SudSea and the adjacent business/apartment plaza in February 2020, a year after purchasing Pioneer Connect’s vacant warehouse in downtown Waldport. The company then moved its maintenance, operations, interior design and property management from Yachats to Waldport.

Korgan said once the laundromat is reopened, they will begin work on the delayed renovations to two of the three adjacent apartments and exterior of the plaza and its sign. That work is estimated at $75,000, he said.

Korgan’s holding company, Poly Vinyl Films of Las Vegas, also purchased the two-story building housing Lil Joe’s General Store in mid-December. The attraction, he said, was a good rental customer and two occupied apartments on the second floor.

The three SudSea plaza apartments and the two across the street are long-term rentals aimed for local workers, he said.

“We want to be a part of the solution to the housing issue on the coast,” he said. “This is our first step.”