Lumber dealer Ganahl buys shuttered Pasadena car dealership
A recently closed Chevrolet dealership on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena has been purchased for close to $10 million by Orange County lumber dealer Ganahl Lumber Co., which plans to turn the four-acre site into a lumber and hardware store.
Ganahl Lumber, one of Southern California’s oldest businesses, will open a new store at the former Team Chevrolet location at 3003 E. Colorado in spring 2011, President Peter Ganahl said. One of the dealership’s showrooms and its service bay building will be incorporated into the design.
The new store will mark the company’s return to Pasadena after about 100 years, Ganahl said. Ganahl Lumber, which opened in Los Angeles in 1884, ran a lumber yard in what is now downtown Pasadena from about 1900 to 1910, he said. The company is based in Anaheim.
Ganahl declined to estimate how many employees he would need to work at the store next year, but said he was able to demonstrate to Pasadena officials that it would generate nearly as much sales tax as a car dealership.
Dealerships are prized by public officials because they generate substantial sales taxes, but many have gone out of business amid the ailing economy, leaving large empty lots behind. Finding new uses for old car lots has been a challenge for municipalities across the country.
Team Chevrolet had also operated Hyundai and Hummer dealerships at its location. The Team Chevrolet lot, which closed last month, had advantages that most suburban auto malls don’t, said real estate broker Bill Ukropina of Coldwell Banker Commercial.
“It’s almost a perfect square, with a huge amount of frontage on East Colorado and it’s at a signalized corner across the street from a Target,” said Ukropina, who represented the seller.
The Pasadena store will be the lumber seller’s 10th location, Ganahl said. In addition to lumber, it sells building materials and hardware, mostly to the construction trade.
