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Tippecanoe County, IN — Auto repair Saturation

How many auto repair exist per person present — residents plus daytime workers — by ZIP code, compared with the U.S. average. Establishment data: Census ZBP 2023. Population: ACS 2024 5-year. 16 ZIP codes analyzed.

Includes: Auto repair & maintenance shops · Body, paint & interior repair. Counted together because official statistics use one 811121 code.

Not enough published data to rank this market: 15 of 16 ZIP cells are withheld (each 0–2 businesses). The county total is somewhere between 8 and 38.

Why a range: Census does not publish a ZIP-by-industry count when that ZIP has 0–2 businesses. 15 ZIP cells in this county are withheld, 11 of them with residents. Each could hold 0, 1, or 2 businesses: counting them all as 0 gives the low end, counting them all as 2 gives the high end — the data cannot say where the truth sits. The density range uses only the populated cells, since ZIPs without residents are excluded from per-person rates. How ranges work

Range spans the U.S. rate   Tippecanoe County auto repair — 41–154% of the U.S. rate

8 auto repair are counted in Tippecanoe County — 0.4 per 10,000 people present (residents + daytime workers), 41% of the U.S. rate of 0.9.

On the comparable ZIP set (ZIPs with a published count in every year), the total has risen 60% between 2015 and 2023 (5 → 8). That set is smaller than today's county total. 2020–2021 were pandemic-distorted, and Census rounds counts, so small moves are within noise.

Measured supply density is highest in 47905 (Lafayette) — well above the national rate. On measured density alone, the lowest-density residential ZIPs with a published count are 47905 (Lafayette).

BLS QCEW puts the latest county-wide count (2026 Q1) at 15 establishments, the freshest available signal.

Measured density: Tippecanoe County sits at 41% of the U.S. rate for auto repair. 11 ZIPs with population have no published count (each 0–2 businesses), so the true per-capita rate is between 41% and 154% of the U.S. rate. Why. The highest measured density is in 47905; the lowest measured density is in 47905.

This is a supply-side read: it counts existing auto repair and the people present, not foot traffic, income, rent, or whether locals want more. Treat low density as a question to check, not an answer.

Auto repair
8–38
published count; upper bound counts each withheld ZIP cell as 2 (15 cells) (2023)
Per 10,000 present
0.4
residents + daytime workers
U.S. average
0.9
per 10,000 present
County index
0.41×
vs. U.S.
Latest quarter (QCEW)
15
2026 Q1 — county total
Residents
189,059
12 ZIPs with data
Workers
73,390
jobs located in county

Is the area growing?

Population
191,650
Census PEP, July 1 2024
Change since 2020
+2.8%
+5,259 people
Net migration 2024
+499
international +3,086, domestic −2,587
Jobs located here
93,132
LODES 2022, +3.3% since 2019

Tippecanoe County had an estimated 191,650 residents on July 1, 2024 — 2.8% more than in 2020 (+5,259). In the latest year it gained 1,168 people: births minus deaths +668, international migration +3,086, domestic migration −2,587. Components are published separately and may not sum exactly.

93,132 jobs were located in the county in 2022 (+3.3% since 2019), and 78,421 employed residents lived there (+1.7% since 2019). LODES counts wage and salary jobs covered by unemployment insurance plus federal jobs; it excludes the self-employed and military, and counts jobs rather than unique people. 2019→2022 spans the pandemic, so read it as one change, not a trend.

Population and migration say whether the customer base is growing. They do not say whether people want another business of this type. Definitions and limits →  ·  Full county detail →

ZIP gaining residents
2015–19 → 2020–24
Change

No ZIP had a statistically significant increase.

ZIP losing residents
2015–19 → 2020–24
Change
47906 West Lafayette
−3.2%

ACS 5-year estimates for 2015–2019 and 2020–2024. Only ZIPs with at least 2,000 residents in both windows and a change larger than the survey margin of error (90%) are listed — small ZIPs move a lot on paper without a real signal.

Nonemployer businesses

Not shown. Census publishes only a broader group that also includes auto glass shops, so an auto-repair-only nonemployer count is not published.

Census Nonemployer Statistics 2024 (NAICS 2022). We do not approximate this figure.

Saturation map

Each ZIP area is shaded by its density of this business type per person present (residents + workers) vs. the U.S. average. Click any ZIP to zoom to its boundary, see its numbers, and switch to aerial imagery. Individual mapped shops appear as dots at street level — Show locations zooms you in to them (scroll or double-click to zoom).

Basemap:
Under 50% 50–100% 100–150% 150–250% 250%+ 0–2 (not published) / no data ZIP total (dot size) Mapped shop (OpenStreetMap, street level)

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, tiles by OpenFreeMap.

White dots are ZIP totals from the official Census count — the bigger the dot, the more auto repair in that ZIP. They are aggregated, not individual shops. Turquoise dots are individual locations mapped in OpenStreetMap, shown only at street level; they are crowd-sourced and indicative, may be incomplete, and do not equal the official counts. Only the official ZIP totals feed the saturation index.

Market trend — up 60% since 2015

Number of auto repair in Tippecanoe County across 2015–2023, on a consistent set of ZIP codes present in every year — so changes are real, not ZIP-boundary artifacts. 2015/2018 are pre-pandemic baselines; 2020/2021 are COVID-distorted.

5
2015
7
2018
8
2020
8
2021
8
2022
8
2023

Highest measured density

ZIP
vs. U.S. average
Index
47905 Lafayette
150%

Lowest measured density

ZIP
vs. U.S. average
Index
47905 Lafayette
150%
Low measured density is not evidence of opportunity. A ZIP with few auto repair may simply lack foot traffic, retail space, or demand. We rank only residential and mixed ZIPs here; employment hubs and visitor destinations are listed separately below. ZIPs where Census did not publish a count (0–2 businesses) are not ranked: they may be the least served of all, but the data cannot tell 0 from 1 or 2. Verify those locally.

All ZIP codes

Click a column header to sort. Index = auto repair per 10,000 people present (residents + 0.5×workers) ÷ the U.S. average. 100% = exactly average.

ZIPNeighborhood ResidentsWorkersAuto repair Per 10kIndexStatus
47905Lafayette 42,21938,602 8 1.3 150% High density
47901Lafayette 4,5853,571 0–2 — — Not published
47902Lafayette —568 0–2 — — Not published
47903Lafayette —1,229 0–2 — — Not published
47904Lafayette 16,2578,254 0–2 — — Not published
47906West Lafayette 75,19814,179 0–2 — — Not published
47907West Lafayette 0406 0–2 — — Not published
47909Lafayette 43,5617,844 0–2 — — Not published
47920Battle Ground 2,329312 0–2 — — Not published
47924Buck Creek 777 0–2 — — Not published
47930Clarks Hill 1,049341 0–2 — — Not published
47941Dayton 1,15974 0–2 — — Not published
47981Romney 70731 0–2 — — Not published
47983Stockwell 25512 0–2 — — Not published
47992Westpoint 1,663163 0–2 — — Not published
47996West Lafayette —122 0–2 — — Not published

Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.

Find an actual space in Lafayette

The numbers above tell you how the market looks. To find a specific storefront, these marketplaces list available retail space for lease.

LoopNet
Largest commercial marketplace
Browse Lafayette retail space →
Crexi
Free listings + market data
Browse Lafayette retail space →
CityFeet
Retail space for lease
Browse Lafayette retail space →

Open vacancy data (actual empty units) is only published by some cities; where it exists we show it directly. Listings above are third-party.

Census withholds some ZIP-by-industry cells to protect small businesses. 0–2 means the cell was not published (Census publishes industry counts only at 3+ per ZIP), so the ZIP is left unranked rather than counted as zero. ~ means the count is estimated from the broader industry group and can be off by a business or two.

Follow Tippecanoe County and auto repair

When a data vintage changes or a section of this report is revised, we post it to a public update feed. No email address, no account, no tracking — and nothing is sent unless something actually changed.

Subscribe to updates (RSS) How these numbers are built →

Methodology & sources

Establishments. U.S. Census ZIP Code Business Patterns (ZBP 2023), NAICS 811121 — automotive body, paint & interior repair. Counts establishments with paid employees. ZBP is published annually with a ~2-year lag.

Fresh county signal. BLS QCEW (quarterly) is newer than ZBP — 2026 Q1 shows 15 establishments county-wide for this industry. It cannot be broken down by ZIP.

Population. U.S. Census American Community Survey 2024 5-year ZCTA population (table B01003). Workers are the ZIP's total employment from the same 2023 ZBP file.

Demand ("people present"). Demand comes from residents and daytime workers: residents + 0.5 × workers. This is the single documented assumption in the model and can be tuned.

Index. index = (ZIP establishments ÷ ZIP demand × 10,000) ÷ the U.S. average for this industry (0.87 per 10,000 present). It is a supply-side density measure; it does not capture income, rent, tourism, or whether locals actually want more.

Read the full methodology →  ·  Data sources & vintages →

BizGapMap — free, no-login small-business saturation reports for major U.S. counties. Built entirely from public U.S. Census, BLS, and IRS data (ZBP 2023, ACS 2024 5-year, PEP 2024, LODES, QCEW, IRS SOI). No forecasts, no revenue guesses — withheld cells are marked, and the few derived counts are labelled as estimates.