Bustling dealerships find room to grow

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This article was published 05/11/2018 (2562 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bursting at the seams, Winnipeg’s original Subaru dealership, Frontier Subaru on Pembina Highway, is moving to the Waverley Auto Mall.

At the same time, Frontier Toyota on Regent Avenue is building a new 45,000-square-foot dealership behind its current store.

Jack Zheng, general manager of Frontier Subaru, and Kirk Cancilla, general manager of Frontier Toyota, said both locations are too small for the volume of sales, and expansion at the Subaru location is impossible.

“We simply outgrew that store,” Cancilla said. “The Subaru brand, the business is growing. It’s incredible.”

Landlocked by railway tracks to the west and neighbours to the north and south, moving was the only option, he said.

Frontier Subaru is selling from 90 to 120 new and used cars per month, and the demands on the service department leave staff little room to breathe, he said.

The new store will be 52,000 square feet located next to Gerry Gordon’s Mazda at the west end of the Waverley Auto Mall and will open in approximately 14 months.

Zheng said the Frontier Subaru had tried for a number of years to acquire more land for expansion on Pembina Highway, but it proved impossible.

Zheng said the new location will feature 13 service bays, a wash bay, an automatic car wash as well as a express drive-thru for oil changes.

The Pembina location was a high-visibility location that helped drive business in the early days when the former owners, the Thompson family, built and moved from a previous building further south, but also said the Waverley Auto Mall is a popular car-shopping destination, Cancilla said.

“Everybody is doing their research online, but it’s still nice to have a good location,” he said. “The auto mall is a huge draw.”

It’s also a busy year for the Regent Avenue locations of Frontier Toyota and Jim Pattison Subaru, both of which are undergoing, or have undergone, significant expansions.

Frontier Toyota’s current store will be demolished when the new store opens.

The Toyota store had been landlocked as well, between Regent Avenue West and Pandora Avenue, which had constricted both the size of the store, the size of the display lot and the convenience of accessing service.

The solution there was buying a portion of Pandora Avenue, making it a cul-de-sac and creating room for the former used-car dealership built five years ago. It has already been demolished to make way for the new, 45,000-square-foot location.

Similarly, Frontier Toyota’s sales volumes exceed capacity, but still aren’t where they should be, he said.

“A guesstimate is we’re at about 120 new and used (per month), but we have to grow that.”

With more room to showcase models and provide a more welcoming approach to customers, he’s confident about the prospects.

Another change for the three dealerships is the opening of a new auto body repair facility on Dugald Road, which will replace the shop currently in operation on Highway 75 almost 10 kilometres south of the Perimeter Highway. That shop will close in December.

kelly.taylor@freepress.mb.ca