Ellis Ends Plan for Dealership in Bellflower : Plans for New Auto Dealership at Bellflower Site Abandoned

Plans to build a new auto dealership here with the help of a $1.6-million loan from the city has been abandoned.

In November, the City Council voted to have staff negotiate with Peter Ellis and Leonard Raynor, a California limited partnership, to work out the details of the loan agreement.

The money would have been used in the building of a Toyota automobile sales and service center on five acres at the northwest corner of Artesia Boulevard and Passage Avenue. The proposed dealership would have been next door to the Ford and Toyota dealership owned by Ellis.

To purchase the five acres and build the facility, even with the loan, “was not economically viable,” Ellis said in an interview.

It would have cost an estimated $3.2 million to purchase the land and about $2 million to construct a building, Ellis said. These expenditures, combined with other expenses, made the project uneconomical, Ellis said.

Bellflower would have used federal Community Development Block Grant funds to make the loan, which was to be repaid over eight years at a simple-interest rate of 3%.