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| Victoria Rusnak, president and CEO of Rusnak Group (right) describes the AMG Performance Center concept to members of the press as Rusnak Group founder Paul Rusnak (L) and Mercedes Benz of Arcadia general manager Brian Beatt look on. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2016) |
Mercedes Benz Of Arcadia Is Previewed By MercedesBenzTechTalk.Com
Mercedes-Benz Of Arcadia is the redesigned new dealership of the Rusnak Auto Group which had its first preview to the press on July 11, 2016 after opening its doors in June. Mercedes-Benz of Arcadia replaces a smaller facility at an adjacent site.
This hallmark luxury dealership is the first LA Basin location to utilize the latest Mercedes-Benz facility image program, known as AutoHaus2.
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| Alysha Webb, editor and publisher of Automotive Buy Sell Report, shakes hands with Rusnak Auto Group founder, Paul Rusnak, as general manager Brian Beatt (R) looks on during the Press Day tour of the newly opened Mercedes Benz of Arcadia. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2016) |
This excerpted and edited from Automotive Buy Sell Report -
New Arcadia facility opens new business opportunities for Rusnak Group’s Mercedes-Benz dealership
Posted By Alysha Webb, Editor and Publisher - July 20, 2016
The Rusnak Auto Group in June opened a huge new Mercedes-Benz dealership in Arcadia, in the San Gabriel Valley northeast of Los Angeles.
The showcase facility took more than a decade to realize, but now Rusnak has new product lines and much more space. That should mean a nice bump in the group’s business.
“It was hard to get the full potential out of the market [in the old dealership],” Brian Beatt, general manager of Mercedes-Benz of Arcadia tells Automotive Buy Sell Report. “We will have opportunities to grow considerably in the next 24 months.”
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The new dealership covers over 241,000 square feet, including 40,000 sq. ft. of indoor showroom space and a bit less than 43,000 sq. ft. of service area. It has ten times more showroom space than the former building and seven to eight times more total space, says Beatt.
The new building will have 64 service bays when completed, and will stock over $1 million in parts. “We just keep growing,” he says.
Construction took several years, but getting the project off the ground was 15 years in the making, Victoria Rusnak, president and CEO of Rusnak Group tells Automotive Buy Sell Report.
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With the additional space, Rusnak has brought in two new business lines — a Mercedes AMG Performance Center and Sprinter vans.
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According to the Mercedes-Benz USA website, there are fewer than a dozen of the AMG Performance Centers — which offer a personalized retail experience – in the U.S.
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| Museum grade space of the Mercedes Benz of Arcadia showroom floor. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2016) |
Adding the Sprinter brand did add construction costs to the new facility, however. To accommodate the tall vans in the service center, the entire building’s ceiling had to be raised by three feet at a cost of $1.4 million, says Beatt.
The facility cost $40 million to build, not including the cost of the land, says Paul Rusnak, the Group’s founder.
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Rusnak was able to use local vendors for some of the materials, but other materials, such as the tile, could only be sourced from Mercedes-Benz-approved suppliers [as per Mercedes-Benz corporate Autohaus2 template], says Victoria Rusnak.
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Rusnak wants to maximize business at her existing dealerships before adding more, she says. They are “a lot to manage with the cash intensity of the facilities right now.”
For example, the Mercedes-Benz of Arcadia hasn’t begun to realize the full sales potential in the area, says Beatt. For the past two years, as the new facility was being built, the old dealership operated out of around 40 percent of its original footprint, he says.
“This created severe operating conditions, with a severe shortage of space for over two years for new vehicle display, pre-owned display, service parking, and customer parking,” says Beatt.
In 2015, Rusnak’s old Arcadia dealership sold 2,270 new cars and light trucks, and 636 pre-owned used cars and light trucks. This year it aims to sell between 2,500 and 2,700 new and 700 pre-owned.
[Reference Here]
The Rusnak Group was founded in 1961 when Paul Rusnak opened a Triumph dealership (British) in Pasadena. The Rusnak Group now includes 14 makes at 15 locations. It is primarily a foreign car luxury automotive sales and service group (Germany, Great Britain, Italy, & Korea) with locations that feature Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Audi, Jaguar, BMW, Bentley, Land Rover, Rolls Royce, Maserati, Volvo, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Sprinter, and Hyundai franchises.
Mercedes-Benz Of Arcadia will become known as the museum display showcase in Southern California for current and newly released automobiles of Mercedes-Benz which is a global automobile manufacturer and a division of the German company Daimler AG headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
... notes from The EDJE
TAGS: Mercedes Benz Of Arcadia, Mercedes Benz, Arcadia, Rusnak, Alysha Webb, automotivebuysellreport.com, MercedesBenzTechTalk, The Rusnak Group, AMG Performance Centers, Sprinter, Mercedes-Benz facility image program, AutoHaus2, Paul Rusnak, Victoria Rusnak, Brian Beatt, The EDJE
