McConnell, Silveira to make upgrades to Healdsburg dealerships
Two of the three car dealerships in Healdsburg are planning on making a few changes over the next few months.
McConnell Chevrolet will be shuffling its operations around during the construction of a new building starting in June. The new 3,000 square foot addition will primarily be used to showcase the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge product lines that Bruce McConnell says many people don’t know are available.
“A lot of people don’t realize we sell Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge products, because there’s no signage and so by adding that it will do nothing but help us,” McConnell said. “It will be nice because since we moved here in 2008, we’ve had no exclusive showroom for Chrysler.”
The construction project had been in the planning stages for some time, he said, but McConnell was waiting until the economy improved before going through with it.
The timing is also good for Chrysler, McConnell said.
“They’ve improved their existing products but, starting with the new Jeep Cherokee, it’s going to lead to a string of new products,” he said.
McConnell said that since December is typically the busiest month of the year for the auto dealer, he hoped the construction would be complete by November.
Silveira Healdsburg is also going through a transformation beginning at the end of April, though to a lesser degree than at McConnell.
Over three months of construction, Silveira is remodeling the existing building that Scott Silveira said his grandfather built in 1964. The reason for the makeover came down from the corporate headquarters of GMC, Silveira said.
“GMC has one look all across the country so they asked us to jump on board,” he said. “By doing so we were able to remain the exclusive Buick and GMC dealer in Sonoma and Marin counties.”
Many manufacturers are trying to bring all dealerships in line with unified branding, he said.
“Mercedes has done the same thing,” he said. “It’s like with McDonalds, you’ll be able to tell our brand from all across the country.”
During the remodel Silveira operations will be shifted around a fair amount, with sales moving into Silveira’s commercial building for the three months the project is expected to take to completion.
“Our biggest concern that we don’t want to lose customers because they don’t want to come in during construction” Silveira said. “We’ve thought out the flow of the business and we don’t think we’ll have any problems with continuing to serve our customers.”
The timing of the two auto dealers undergoing construction at the same time was not by design, they both said.
“It’s a very strange coincidence,” Silveira said. “We’re both going to be on the city council docket on the same day, even.”
Bruce McConnell saw some significance in the timing that he attributed to the strength of the industry in Healdsburg specifically.
“Silveira and ourselves building now, it shows a willingness to invest in the community,” he said. “When many small towns have lost dealerships in recent years, Healdsburg has seen a net gain over the last five years in auto dealers.”
Auto dealerships are important to the city of Healdsburg according to city manager Marjie Pettus, making up some 20 percent of sales tax revenue.
“It’s really gratifying that they’ve weathered the storm,” Pettus said, calling the new projects a positive sign of an uptick in the economy.
“There’s a large amount of interest in Healdsburg for projects,” she said. “That tells me that financing is loosening and we can be optimistic about development and growth.”
