THORNTON — A Fortune 500 car sales company chose a former redevelopment area in Thornton as its headquarters for a technology-centric used car dealership that thrives on community partnerships, and the image alone is making waves.
Officials with Sonic Automotive Inc., based in Charlotte, N.C., have been for used car sales for about 8 years with the goal of changing the entire car buying experience.
Jeff Dyke, executive vice president of operations for Sonic, said that experience has become a dreadful process for most people, and his entire goal was to change the perception.
So, the company created , a streamlined customer service store where about 85 locally employed sales associates are on salary and trained to leave customers alone unless they need help.
” , and we don’t like car dealerships, either,” Dyke said. “With EchoPark, we’re changing the car experience for everybody. Everything is comfortable and relaxed, there’s no pressure.”
A 60,000-square-foot EchoPark dealership at 500 East 104th St. Nov. 3 and sold 50 cars in a little more than two weeks.
The shop is organized like an Apple store: There are docked iPads lined up around standing stations that are connected to giant video walls. Customers use the iPads to search inventory of cars priced from $3,000 to $60,000, and build their own payment plans in waiting areas that look like hotel lobbies.
“Sonic is one of the largest publicly traded new dealership groups in the country … and now they are starting to develop out this concept of having used car centers in (community) markets, and they’re experimenting in a lot of different ways,” said Tim Jackson, president of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association. “They’ve moved the ball down the court, so to speak, on that delivery process, and I think they will do very well with it and I think consumers will do very well with it.”
The Thornton headquarters store is the first of six planned dealerships slated to open in the metro area in the next year. The other five stores will be like satellite hubs. EchoPark will open stores at 1500 East County Line Road in Highlands Ranch and 10401 East Arapahoe Road in Centennial in December.
Those stores will be about 17,000 square feet each and employ about 30 people. Three more stores in Dakota Ridge, Golden and Stapleton are expected to open in 2015.
Sonic put up about $18 million to develop the Thornton site, and up to $60 million total investment for all six stores.
“We’re interested in doing anything to be part of our communities,” Dyke said. “What we’d ultimately like to do are defensive driving and driver’s education classes (in Thornton). We’ve got a driving education program coming up. We’re going to clear the front lot and teach them about texting and driving.”
EchoPark’s Dakota Ridge store will be right across from Dakota Ridge High School. Dyke said he’s developing a partnership with the school where students may eventually be able to enroll in a defensive driving programs and auto mechanics classes that could be held in the store’s repair bays.
John Cody, Thornton’s economic development director, said the aesthetics of the store are what the city is aiming for in the redevelopment area.
“Originally, I don’t think the city had envisioned that that site would have any type of auto sales operation,” Cody said. “But when they saw the details of what this was going to be, and given that this is a new concept in used auto sales … council was sold on doing it.”
Megan Mitchell: 303-954-2650, mmitchell@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Mmitchelldp
