Les Schwab Tire Center plans to build store in Otsego

by Joni Astrup

Associate Editor

A Les Schwab Tire Center is coming to Otsego.

The company intends to construct a 10,745-square-foot building at the southwest corner of Parrish Avenue and 87th Street. The vacant site is located just south of Aldi.

The Otsego City Council considered plans for the business at the April 8 meeting, before voting to approve several items related to it.

Les Schwab Tire Centers is a tire retail chain. It offers a variety of products and services including tires, brakes, wheels, alignment, batteries, and shocks and struts, according to the company website.

Zack Graham of Graham Engineering in Bozeman, Montana, represented the company at the Otsego City Council meeting. He told council members that the company is very well established in the western United States and is privately held.

Customer service is a priority.

Store managers are trained extensively and really take involvement in the community, he added.

The company was founded by the late Les Schwab, who was born in 1917 in Bend, Oregon. He built his business from one store in 1952 to hundreds of locations across the western states, making Les Schwab one of the largest independent tire businesses in the United States, according to the company’s website.

There currently is one Les Schwab Tire Center in Minnesota, in Moorhead, which opens this month, Graham said.

“The goal is to open seven in Minnesota in 2025 ... and this (Otsego store) is one of them,” he said.

The City Council approved a conditional use permit, site and building plans and a site improvement performance agreement at the April 8 meeting.

The site is zoned B1, Retail Business District, and minor auto uses such as the tire center are allowed as a conditional use, subject to certain standards.

Graham said store hours will be 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. It will be closed on Sunday.

All new and used tires will be stored inside and all repair activities must be conducted within the building, with overhead doors to the service bays closed at all times except when moving vehicles in and out. There also will be landscaping installed as a buffer to residential areas.