Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Loan Helps Car Dealer Open Shop : Business: With $360,000 from the city of Palmdale, the owner has ended a year wait to begin selling at the Antelope Valley Auto Center.

With the help of a $360,000 loan from the city of Palmdale, longtime auto dealer Paul Grubl was finally able to open his BMW-Subaru dealership at the Antelope Valley Auto Center.

Grubl’s stark white stucco-and-glass building at the center, home to five other dealerships, had remained virtually finished--yet vacant--for more than a year after Grubl lost his financing and struggled to hang on to his business at its Lancaster location.

Grubl BMW-Subaru opened Monday, selling new and used cars at the 65-acre auto mall next to the Antelope Valley Freeway. The service department is slated to move Aug. 2 from the former dealership near Avenue I and Sierra Highway to the city-sponsored center in Palmdale.

“It’s something we’ve been planning for some time,” Grubl said of his business’s relocation to the 2-year-old Palmdale auto mall. “We’re looking forward to a good operation. This is the place to be.”

Grubl is not the only dealership the city has assisted at the auto center.

Seventeen months ago, the city loaned $250,000 to each of the five operating dealerships and has also contributed $1.2 million for advertising the center and $180,000 for landscape maintenance.

In May, the city purchased the 37 acres of undeveloped land in the boundaries of the auto center from the center’s developer, William Royster, for about $6 million.

Palmdale’s financial aid for the fledgling auto center dealerships has raised the ire of local business owners who wonder why the city isn’t providing them with any economic assistance.

City officials contend Palmdale’s investment in the center and loans to the dealers will, in the long term, pay off many times over in sales tax revenue for city coffers.

Antelope Valley Auto Center is expected to eventually generate more than $1 million annually in sales tax revenue. In the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, Palmdale is expecting $700,000 in sales tax revenue from the center.

Grubl’s BMW-Subaru dealership, according to city officials, will provide Palmdale with as much as $85,000 annually in sales tax income.