Lithia Motors builds $16 million project in Salem
The Honda dealership in downtown Salem will relocate to a new building along Salem Parkway by this winter.
Owned by Lithia Motors Inc., the Honda dealership is one of three downtown dealerships on the move to Salem Parkway. An approximately 10-acre site at 3335 Del Webb Ave. NE will become the new home for Lithia's Honda, BMW and Volkswagen stores.
Mark DeBoer, Lithia's vice president of real estate, said Monday that construction at the Salem Parkway location is nearing completion.
The Honda store is expected to leave downtown Salem and reopen at the Salem Parkway site by early December, he said.
Meanwhile, construction of the new BMW store is about 70 percent done. Work on the Volkswagen store, which will go into a remodeled building, is running behind the progress made on the BMW store.
By January or February, DeBoer said, the new BMW and Volkswagen stores are expected to be open.
Lithia has invested about $16 million to develop the new base for its Salem operations, according to the company.
The downtown locations Lithia will soon leave have become too small to meet car manufacturers' specifications. Consumer demand also played a part in the decision to move to Salem Parkway.
"We can stock more cars. It's easier for them to get in and out," DeBoer said of the new location.
Lithia currently leases about 7.5 acres of property in downtown Salem. DeBoer said he didn't know what the property owner planned to do with the real estate once Lithia move out.
The property is owned by the Delon family. Tom Delon, who died in 2010, had operated car dealerships in Salem for nearly 50 years.
mrose@StatesmanJournal .com (503) 399-6657 or follow on Twitter @mrose_sj
More about the dealerships
Lithia Motors is relocating its downtown dealerships to Salem Parkway.
City records show that the location at 3335 Del Webb Ave. NE will includes three buildings with a grand total of 98,577 square feet of space. In addition to customer parking, the site will have 477 vehicle display spaces.
CD Redding Construction Inc. is the building contractor; the architect is Carlson Veit Architects P.C.
—Michael Rose