Cleaners carrying torch as community fixture | Local News

With the words well cleaned, well pressed and well dressed hovering in three red arrows above its iconic sign, it’s tough for those passing by Broadway Cleaners in Redwood City to miss it.

Built specifically for a dry cleaning business some 57 years ago, the building at 1681 Main St. is a fixture standing where the street dead-ends into El Camino Real. It’s now occupied by lifelong dry cleaners Marti and Jim Russell, who have owned and operated a business there for the past six years.

An instructor and third-generation dry cleaner, Marti Russell is no stranger to the business. She has fond memories of helping her father, a dry cleaner himself, sort through hangers as a kid and worked in his Belmont shop while she attended San Mateo High School.

Though Marti Russell has logged over 50 years in the business, the stories her customers tell her about the items they are dropping off keep her far from bored.

“You just can’t make some of this stuff up,” she said.

From helping customers with last-minute prom dress alterations to restoring a wedding dress dragged through the beach, Marti Russell has seemingly seen and heard it all. She’s found all kinds of items in the pockets of pants that customers have dropped off such as coins and weddings rings, and has a collection of stories to match all of the unusual requests and items she’s worked with over the years.

Though taking over her father’s Belmont dry cleanings seemed like an obvious choice for her, Marti Russell remembers a time when she wanted to move away from the profession and left the Peninsula to attend the University of Michigan. But she found herself working for a dry cleaner in Michigan, and knew she had developed an affinity for the profession with which she grew up.

“I knew how do to that and I knew how to do that well,” she said.

Until 2003, she ran the store her father started along with another location in San Mateo. Though she tried to retire then, she found she wasn’t ready to put her feet up just yet.

“My game plan was to retire,” she said. “I stayed home for like 16 months and then I was like, ‘you can only clean your home so much.’”

Despite the long hours and physical labor involved in the business, the rapport Marti Russell develops with customers inspired her and Jim Russell to open another dry cleaners at 1681 Main St.

In her shop, she hangs up elaborate evening gowns behind the desk until their owners retrieve them as a conversation starter with those who walk into her business. Every summer, she and a handful of others host a car show residents from nearby neighborhoods can attend.

But customers are having more trouble accessing her store in recent months as a four-story building is being built immediately adjacent to two sides of Broadway Cleaners. Construction began in May and is expected to last a little over a year as W.L. Butler Construction’s headquarters and two apartment units are built. The impacts are also affecting nearby sidewalks and streets.

Marti Russell said she is ready to fulfill the remaining 14 years of her 20-year lease and has every intention of staying in business during as well as after construction of the project going up on two sides of her business. But she is anxious for the construction work to end. So far, temporary closures of the driveways into her business and sidewalks just outside have discouraged customers from stopping by for drop-offs and pick-ups.

“I can’t wait for it to be over with,” she said.

Marti Russell said she has been in contact with city officials, representatives of Butler Construction as well as those working on the project so she knows what the timelines are and can anticipate what’s next. But when workers temporarily broke a nearby water main, unexpectedly interrupting her operations, her frustration piqued.

Gina Henson, Butler Construction’s chief financial officer, said the contractor is trying to minimize the construction impacts of its new headquarters, which will provide the company additional space for employees currently working out of aging offices in multiple Redwood City locations.

She said representatives from Butler construction have been meeting with the Broadway Cleaners property owner as well as the Russells to discuss the phasing of the work, which is complex with city requirements the company install a new water main and underground utilities.

“There is a lot going on out there,” Henson said.

Catherine Ralston, the city’s economic development manager, said she’s working with all parties to discuss the phasing of the work, make sure they’re aware of the timeline and to keep at least one of the driveways into the dry cleaners open at all times. She also helped with signs and outreach through social media and email to spread the word Broadway Cleaners will remain open.

“Each project comes down to individual circumstances,” Ralston said, adding that though various effects of the construction had been anticipated before ground broke on the project, the high volume of traffic and unique lot shape exacerbated its impact.

Though Marti Russell is encouraged by the fact that construction will end soon, the worry about what’s next for the business she has fostered for her whole life is never far from consciousness.

“You’re married to the store,” she said. “I worry about it all the time.”  

Visit Broadway Cleaners at 1681 Main St. or broadwaycleaners.net for more information.

anna@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200 ext. 102