CAMDEN — It’s official: Clean Bee Laundry at 83 Elm St., located next to K2 Music in Reny's Plaza, has changed hands. New owners Ryan and Candace Lawrence, of Camden, purchased the business last month from Jennifer and Broo Temple, and took full possession of the multi-service operation on Friday, Sept. 30.

Ryan Lawrence has been in construction for the last 10 years. He said he saw the "for sale" sign and decided it was time for a change.

"The previous owners have done an amazing job of building this business up as a unique experience to do laundry," he said. "We decided to dive right in and give it a shot."

The Lawrences, with their two children, Kirstin and Cameron, have lived in the Camden area for 10 years. While saying he has no experience in the laundry business, Lawrence said he has received a lot of on-the-job training over the past month.

"I spent the last month working with the previous owners to get a handle and understanding on the business," he said. "I think I have a pretty good grasp on it at this point and I have a lot of business experience."

With a construction background, Lawrence said they were not going to do anything crazy inside the laundromat. New tops on the counter and in a few weeks people will see some new changes to things.

"We're going to stick with the same services," he said. "Especially the green cleaning. We're the only one in the area besides Pen Bay Hospital with ozone machines that give you hospital grade sanitization. We'll expand a little bit and get into drop off and pick up of dry cleaning for businesses."

Lawrence said the element that the Temples had built will stay the same as far as organic soaps; a green friendly place to clean your clothes. And you can use your credit card to power the machines.

"It's great on my end and it's great on the customers’ end," he said. "The customer doesn't have to deal with quarters and I don't have to take bags of quarters to the bank. It's a fast easy way to do your laundry, but you still have the coin option as well."

The Temple's started a diaper service 10 years ago that grew into the present day Clean Bee Laundry.

"We will continue the diaper service to existing customers and welcome new ones as well,” said Lawrence. “We pick them up, wash them and drop them off. We'll continue doing home classes for first time cloth diaper users as well."

Clean Bee's winter hours will be 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the summer. They will be open seven days a week.

"I'm really excited to be part of this community and part of the downtown business community. We are involved with the Chamber and other businesses, my kids go to Camden schools, it's an amazing place to raise kids and I want to say what a great job Jennifer and Broo did building this business. They did a great job and we are looking forward to carrying on that tradition," said Lawrence.