Auto Dealer Koosa Faces a ‘Friendly’ Foreclosure : Financing: Religious order hopes to acquire title of Nissan of Downey, then lease it back to the beleaguered owner.

One of Downey’s largest auto dealers is scheduled to lose his land and building in a foreclosure sale today, but the owner of Nissan of Downey hopes that his troubled dealership will continue to be a fixture on Firestone Boulevard.

Carmen Koosa, the dealership owner, is unable to pay off a $750,000 loan from the Sisters of the Company of Mary Our Lady, a Roman Catholic teaching order, because of slumping car sales.

The sisters hope to acquire the title to the property at the foreclosure sale at Pomona Municipal Court, and assume other debts of $4.2 million against the property. Then they plan to lease the land and building back to Koosa.

“This is a foreclosure on friendly terms,” Koosa said. “The sisters will foreclose on Nissan of Downey and lease it back to me at a decent rate.”

Koosa said he hopes the sisters will be able to assume ownership of the property, but if they do not, he hopes another owner would also agree to lease the land to him. Otherwise, “I say goodby,” he said. The dealership has 60 employees.

Nissan of Downey is the third auto dealership on Firestone to experience severe financial problems in the past two months. Downey Toyota and Paramount Chevrolet, which provided $500,000 a year in tax revenues for the city, went out of business in September. Toyota and Chevrolet officials have said they intend to find new dealers.

City Manager Gerald M. Caton said the closure of a third auto dealership in the city “would be extremely significant.”

Auto sales taxes generated $2.7 million for the city last year--10% of the city’s general fund. Nissan of Downey contributed more than $150,000 in revenues, Caton said.

The dwindling revenues from auto sales have forced the city officials to impose a hiring freeze and delay annual cost-of-living salary increases for employees, Caton said.

Koosa said he could have avoided foreclosure if the city had granted his requests for financial aid to provide much-needed renovations for his dealership.

Caton said the city’s Redevelopment Agency considered helping Koosa, but decided that “the risks were greater than the (potential) benefit to the city.”

Koosa’s property is currently worth between $5.2 and $5.8 million, but there are five loans against the property, including the loan from the Sisters of the Company of Mary Our Lady.

“What really hurt Koosa was that all his loans were due this year and because of the economy, no one wanted to refinance him,” said Ron Weiss, attorney for the sisters.

Koosa, who was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1985 as the top car salesman in the world, owned five car dealerships at the beginning of 1990 and is now struggling to keep two afloat. He closed a used car dealership in San Diego, Nissan of Cypress and Bellflower Toyota. He currently operates an Infiniti dealership in Santa Fe Springs as well as the Downey dealership.

Weiss said he recommended that the sisters make the original loan to Koosa. “Carmen was a friend, and the sisters needed a place to invest,” Weiss said. “They like Koosa. They only foreclosed . . . to cover themselves.”

The Sisters of the Company of Mary Our Lady have their headquarters in Rome and a regional base in Tustin. They operate Divine Providence preschool in Los Angeles and St. Jeanne de Lestonac schools in Tustin and Los Angeles.