The former Sticky Fingers restaurant location on Market Street will soon be demolished to make way for a new car wash.

Ed Umstead, owner of Splash-N-Dash Car Wash, said Thursday his firm purchased the former restaurant site where he plans to tear down the existing 6,647-square-foot building at 5044 Market St. to make way for the new structure.

Pending city approval, Umstead plans to break ground on Wilmington’s first Splash-N-Dash location within a month and open the car wash by the end of the year.

Plans call for the site to be transformed into an express car wash equipped with a 4,250-square-foot, automated car wash building that will wash the vehicles as they enter the structure, according to plans submitted with the city’s development services department. The site will also accommodate 24 vacuum stations for customers.

Umstead, a 1978 University of North Carolina Wilmington alumnus who currently resides in Martinez, Ga., said he is scouting sites for two future locations in the area.

“We’re looking for sites next to big-box locations that have high traffic counts,” he said.

The former Sticky Fingers location has been scouted by a number of users and developers since its closure.

In August 2012, Charleston-based Charleston Hospitality Group announced plans to open a restaurant called Market Street Saloon to fill the vacant location.

At the time, owners of the proposed restaurant compared the atmosphere of the proposed eatery and pub to the bar in the 2000 movie "Coyote Ugly," with “saloon girls” wearing cut-off shorts and cowboy boots, serving barbeque and brews from Kansas, Memphis and the Carolinas.

Officials with Charleston Hospitality Group could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon about future plans for the proposed Wilmington restaurant.