ZIPS Dry Cleaners owner Lea Callahan works to serve the community by not only providing students and residents a place to get their clothes cleaned, but also by aiding in local business initiatives, including ones with R.J. Bentley’s and Ledo Restaurant. She opened her establishment 23 years ago, though it served as a community establishment well before then.
Gone are the free weights, the tanning beds, the hot tubs — customers waiting for their laundry at 7215 Baltimore Ave. no longer practice tae kwon do in the dance studio or study upstairs.
At nearby Laundry World, they can still shoot pool or play Cruis’n Exotica. But most people pass quickly through ZIPS Dry Cleaners’ black and yellow overhang after dropping off their wares, just as they do at any of the chain’s locations.
Next to owner Lea Callahan’s desk, there are signs hinting at the laundry service’s deeper roots in the community. Plastic binders list off “Student Union,” “Northwestern ROTC” and “Band Costumes.” Before Callahan’s store became a Dry Clean Depot and later ZIPS — nearly 14 years ago — it was already a community fixture.
Callahan’s job doesn’t stop in her store — she continually works to improve the community. As president of the Downtown College Park Management Authority, she collaborates on local business initiatives with the owners of Ledo Restaurant and R.J. Bentley’s, among others.
Before Laundry World, Callahan ran Clean and Lean, a “schizophrenic” laundromat that doubled as a spa and gym and appealed to the scores of students living near Route 1, especially fraternity and sorority members, in the 1990s. But when the university completed an $8 million renovation of Ritchie Coliseum 15 years ago, her already transient student clientele began to slip.
“Through the month of August, we’re all biting our nails hoping we can make it till the students come back, and I swore my next business would not depend on that campus for 100 percent of my revenue,” Callahan said.
After nine years of Clean and Lean, Callahan jumped on an opportunity to franchise. ZIPS now completes all dry cleaning on its premises and promises same-day service for those who drop off clothes before 9 a.m., for $1.99 per garment.
“I would never use a Laundromat and [ZIPS is] reasonably priced and fast,” said Leah Wilson, an alumna from Washington.
However, the loss of self-service washers and dryers — as well as circuit training and a study room — has left its mark. Callahan has seen a growth in business from outside the area, which helps anchor downtown College Park, but fewer students. And some of her former customers now take their business to Laundry World.
When Diane Whitney, of Mechanicsville, lived in the city, she would bring her children to Clean and Lean so they could fit in a workout while running errands. But after the store switched to dry cleaning only, Whitney went to ZIPS.
“This is my office,” said Whitney, who was going over paperwork with her son while her grandchildren’s laundry dried. “I have someone else meeting me, too.”
In the late 1990s, that expansive, glass-enclosed store just a few yards away served its laundry services with a side of hot dogs instead of workouts. Now under a different owner, the business has retained its arcade features, a friendly, welcoming staff and a clean environment.
“This Laundromat is about one of the cleanest Laundromats I’ve ever been in,” said Laverne Method, who had three machines still running as she folded rugs from two more dryers. “There’s people that have been coming here for a long time … they don’t have a lot of problems, they don’t have a lot of people coming in, the derelicts.”
Method’s laundry run will take nearly three hours and will cost about $24, she said. The store can be hectic on weekends when children get bored of the games — though she’s tried her hand at Pac-Man herself — but it’s peaceful this Tuesday morning.
And she pushes to improve security in the area in response to the threat of crime and the tension that festers between residents and student renters. In particular, she hopes the city will add security cameras to the Calvert Hills area.
Three years ago, three armed men in masks broke through ZIPS’ back door, and made away from the robbery in a carjacked Porsche, Callahan said. And last month, on a smaller scale, students vandalized a neighbor’s home. They ripped a large plaster eagle from its mounting above the front door and crushed it into three pieces on the lawn.
“They had to be on each other’s shoulders to get it,” Callahan said. “I don’t how the hell they got it off.”
But Callahan works to strike a balance. She’s always happy to contribute a gift certificate to fraternity and sorority members’ fundraisers.
And though she misses the workout equipment and atmosphere of Clean and Lean, it’s a comfort to know her laundry business is firmly grounded in the College Park community.
“I’ve always been a firm believer, recession or no recession, everyone always has to clean their clothes,” Callahan said.
