Mercedes Dealership to Leave City

Mission Viejo Imports is taking its Mercedes-Benz dealership across the freeway to Laguna Niguel, city officials say. And unhappy officials in Mission Viejo are fretting that the move will cost the city about $400,000 a year in sales tax revenue.

Mission Viejo had been negotiating to keep the dealership in town and was caught by surprise by the impending move. City Manager Dan Joseph said the city found out about Mission Viejo Imports’ intentions by reading a legal notice in a local newspaper last week.

“It’s unfortunate,” Joseph said. “We hate to see them leave because they are a significant sales tax contributor . . . but we offered them as much as we legally could.”

Now located at Avery and Marguerite parkways, the company was looking at a bigger site about a mile north and had initially asked Mission Viejo for about $4 million to keep the dealership in the city, Joseph said.

With the prospective site at Crown Valley Parkway in an existing redevelopment area, the city could have contributed tax increment funding generated by new development without dipping into its general fund.

Although declining to name an exact figure, Joseph said the city had offered as much as legally allowed under state redevelopment law--approximately $2 million.

“Evidently it wasn’t enough,” Joseph said. “I guess the cost of land [at the Laguna Niguel site] was pretty low.”

Mission Viejo Imports General Manager Louise Murphy did not return phone calls seeking comment.