BUENA PARK : Toyota Dealership to Move to Auto Center

City officials have approved an agreement to move Buena Park Toyota to the city’s Manchester Boulevard auto center.

“The auto dealership is important in a lot of ways,” said Mayor Donald L. Bone. “No. 1, it was an effort to retain business in Buena Park, and it . . . will help us attract other dealerships to fill out available land.”

Since 1988, the city has been buying property along Manchester Boulevard to expand the auto center, which now has nine dealerships.

Buena Park Toyota will move from its current location at Western and Orangethorpe avenues to the auto row site at Beach and Manchester boulevards, next to the Santa Ana Freeway.

Two historic homes now sit on the 3.4-acre site, Bacon House and the Whitaker-Jaynes home. They will be moved to a newly created historical district on Beach Boulevard across from City Hall.

KLJ Partners, which owns Buena Park Toyota, will buy the site for about $481,000. The dealership also has a two-year option to buy an adjacent 2.9-acre site to build a second dealership, said May Hui, assistant director of development services-economic development for the city.

Hui said the city’s investment in the dealership project is about $5 million, which includes costs to buy the property for the historic homes relocation, move the homes and improve the site as well as to buy the Manchester Boulevard property (which the city will sell to KLJ) and demolish buildings on that site.

City officials lauded the dealership’s move because of the projected sales-tax revenue of $250,000 a year. If the second dealership is built, the business is expected to bring in $225,000 a year in sales taxes. Property taxes generated from both sites are expected to be about $70,000 a year, Hui said.