ST. ALBANS — St. Albans is getting a new car dealership.
Over the next year, Nucar Automall of St. Albans will be building a larger dealership across the street from its current location, 118 Franklin Park West, to take advantage of efficiencies of scale.
Shawn Hanlon, president of DCD Automotive Holdings, said the new 42,000-square-foot location will feature two large showrooms and an expansive service shop.
“It will create a state-of-the-art, modern, brand new facility that will represent each manufacturer up to the current standards and give us some economies of scale that go along with that, instead of having three buildings,” Hanlon said.
The new building will have two different showrooms – one for Ford products, and one for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram vehicles – separated by a line of service bays. The facility will employ about 75 people.
“We’ll gain quite a bit of space,” Hanlon said. “The Bokans maxed out every inch of that facility.”
As for Nucar’s other St. Albans locations, the former dealerships could potentially provide additional room for new automobile services in the area. Nucar hasn’t solidified those plans quite yet, but some ideas being thrown around include a dealership for just commercial vehicles or a body shop.
Such expansions will most likely create more job opportunities in the area, Hanlon said.
“St. Albans is a town that is expanding. … As Burlington becomes more expansive, a lot of people are living in the surrounding areas, and St. Albans provides an opportunity,” Hanlon said.
Nucar is currently in the permitting process of the build.
The actual site work will start within the next few months, Hanlon said, and the over $10 million building is expected to be completed by the end of 2023 or early 2024.
Car demand
While the COVID-19 pandemic snaggled supply lines for new and used vehicles, Hanlon said high demand has continued regardless at Nucar as the industry evolves. The new location will help the company through some of those transitions.
For example, more and more customers are well informed about the exact make and model they’re looking for, and online tools give customers the ability to search through Nucar’s inventory before even seeing the car firsthand.
Those new buying patterns have helped streamline the process, and Nucar’s new location will be to better deliver that new customer experience. Hanlon said the larger automotive group has holdings of about 1,800 cars, which are shuttled around New England depending on need, and buyers can get the model they’re looking for delivered to the Nucar’s St. Albans location, or even right to the customer’s front door.
He also expects the new location will be built to better prepare for the eventual electric vehicle revolution, which he said is just over the horizon.
Over the next few years, Hanlon many popular models of vehicles will be rolled out to better compete with the electric vehicle market juggernaut, Tesla, and he expects electric vehicle chargers will become more ubiquitous.
For dealerships, they’ll need to look at the infrastructure related to the change, Hanlon said, such as installing the latest level 3 charging stations to be available for new buyers.
“The output isn’t there for the manufacturer, but the demand definitely is. That’s coming down the road,” Hanlon said. “We’re very pro-electric. We think it’s here to stay.”