Specialty tire store plans to build 4,500-square-foot facility on Broadway, open by November

QUINCY — Construction on a specialty tire store on the east end of Broadway is expected to begin this summer and be completed by November.

Plaza Tire Service, based out of Cape Girardeau, Mo., plans to build a 4,500-square-foot facility with eight bays at 4020 Broadway between O’Reilly Auto Parts and ImmunoTek Plasma. Brothers Mark Rhodes and Scott Rhodes run the company, which has 73 stores throughout the Midwest. Sun Auto Tire and Service, based out of Arizona, is the parent company of Plaza Tire Service after acquiring the business in 2021.

R2R3 LLC, for which Scott Rhodes is the registered agent, bought a 1.18-acre lot of farmland for $514,517 on April 29 from the Charles T. Marx Trust, according to property tax documents filed in the Adams County Recorder’s Office.

Brian McMillan, director of marketing operations at Sun Auto Tire & Service, said each Plaza Tire Service location is built for a capacity of approximately 2,000 tires. Each store offers automotive maintenance, oil changes, fluid flushes, filter replacements, under-car work and wheel alignments.

“We don’t get into major repairs. It’s your tires and routine maintenance,” McMillan said. “Our business model is very much, ‘We have the tire right now.’ Our goal is if the customer comes in and needs tires, we have a couple of options available for their vehicle. We go over those options and let them make their choice. Then our staff is charged with installing those tires and getting that customer back on the road in an hour.

“Having tires in stock is a fundamental part of our thinking and allows us to provide a better customer experience. We’re not so naive that we believe people love tires the way we love tires, and they want to go out to shop for them. The easier we can make the process, the less of (the customer’s) day we’re taking up with the process. We want to make it as convenient as possible. We think that leaves us with a happier customer.”

McMillan said Plaza Tire Service looks for communities where an opportunity exists for it to fill a niche. It also needs to be close enough to the company’s Cape Girardeau distribution center, which houses more than 200,000 tires, to get deliveries between three and five times a week.

“Quincy is not too far beyond any other facilities that we have, and it’s easy enough for us to serve with our delivery trucks,” he said. “It’s a never-ending process of new inventory coming in and then going out to the stores.”

Plaza Tire Service will celebrate its 61^st birthday in June. It was founded in 1963 by Vernon “Pee-Wee” Rhodes, who was involved in the business through the early 2000s before selling it to his sons.

Forty-eight stores are in Missouri. Keokuk has the only Plaza Tire Service location in Iowa. The Quincy store will be the 11^th in Illinois, and all of them are in the southern part of the state. The most recent store was opened in Edwardsville. Other Illinois stores are in Anna, Carbondale, Murphysboro, Marion, DuQuoin, Benton, Metropolis, Sparta and Mount Vernon. Other Plaza Tire Service stores are in western Kentucky and northern Arkansas.