Stanley Ford Juneau owner Tony Stanley said he’s in the process of selling the new car portion of his dealership to Kendall Auto Group, an Oregon-based company that has Alaska operations in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Wasilla.
If the deal goes through on Sept. 12, Kendall won’t be operating a new Ford franchise out of Juneau. Instead, Stanley will continue to run the facility on Mallard Street.
“The new cars are going away, but we’re not going away,” Stanley said on Tuesday. “We intend on operating out of here. We intend on continuing to sell cars. We intend on continuing to sell parts and services.”
The plan is to transition Stanley Ford to Stanley Used Cars, the Anchorage businessman said. As the new inventory gets shipped out, used cars will be coming in. The dealership has been selling both since it opened in December 2012.
“The used portion has been profitable. New car sales have been slow. We’re not able to rotate inventory and to sell the number of vehicles we need to sell in order to keep the new car side of this business viable,” Stanley said.
Besides continuing to sell used cars, Stanley said the business will also continue to run a quick lube for oil changes and open a tire center. New facility manager Anthony Manacio V will be the local person in charge of Stanley Used Cars.
The dealership’s normal staff of 16 full-time employees will likely shrink down to 10 or 12 once its settles into its new operation, Stanley said. Since word of the possible sale first got out, a few technicians already decided to leave on their own to find other work, he said.
A former local Ford dealership, Skinner Sales and Service of Juneau, abruptly closed in 2009 leaving employees out of a job and Ford owners with warranties issued by Ford Motor Company in a lurch for car servicing.
[Skinner closes Southeast stores]
Stanley said that’s not happening this time.
At the moment, he said warranty car servicing is backlogged due to the loss of staff. But he expects to bring in new technicians soon to open the schedule up and still offer warranty work after Sept. 12.
“Kendall and Stanley are in negotiations for us to continue doing warranty work in the city of Juneau,” Stanley said.
When Stanley Ford first opened the roughly 10,000-square-foot space in Juneau on 8825 Mallard Street at the end of 2012, he had plans of expanding.
[Ford dealer already busy before official opening]
“We started out as a small store with a dream of trying to build a new dealership here. We sought out land, which has not been the easiest thing to find. At the end of the day, our numbers with new cars never got to the point that we could pencil building a $4 million to $5 million building on top of spending a couple million dollars on land. We couldn’t justify doing that,” Stanley said.
Stanley said he and his family are also in the process of selling Stanley Ford in Kenai, Stanley Chrysler in Soldotna and Budget Rent A Car of Alaska to Kendall. The Stanley Nissan dealership in Fairbanks was bought by an employee about three weeks ago.
Aside from Stanley Used Cars, Stanley will continue to operate Juneau’s auto repair business Fix Auto on Crazy Horse Drive.
“We love this community. We’re happy to be here. We want to continue supporting the community and we want to provide jobs for the people that are still here working for us,” he said. “But unfortunately we just couldn’t make the new cars portion pencil out.”
• Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneauempire.com.
Read more news:
Sonar cam helps locate fisherman’s body in Auke Bay
As Juneau counts votes by hand, lawmakers in Anchorage complain
