To stay in the city, dealership thinks smaller and taller

To locate a full-service dealership in a snug space in downtown Vancouver, Jim Pattison Auto Group built upward — visibly taking three levels of a 13-storey building — but also downward, with five floors underground, housing service, washing and detailing, and new and used inventory.

The innovative design allowed Jim Pattison Toyota Downtown to keep its address in the core at a time when dealerships are often driven to the suburbs by the high cost of prime central real estate and zoning rules. The revamped Toyota store boasts eight levels, which include a huge display area and extensive service department, all on a comparatively small footprint.

• Read all our previous Best Practices pieces here.

It reopened in late August in a gleaming new commercial-residential tower complex on the southern edge of the city core. The dealership held a grand opening in late November.

“More and more of our business is going online,” said Bill Harbottle, president of the group, which owns 28 franchised dealerships in western Canada. “But at the end of the day, people still want to see, feel, touch and test-drive automobiles. You don’t need three or four acres of cars on your lot, but you need a place to show them.”

Harbottle said the store draws customers from across Vancouver. It’s convenient for commuters who want to service their vehicles or browse for a new one on lunch break, he said, noting that overall industry sales remain strong.

“So, it’s certainly a very good market.”

The dealership “is ideally situated to conveniently serve our customers living or working in downtown Vancouver,” said Larry Hutchinson, CEO, Toyota Canada. “As urban  real-estate valuations continue to rise, dealerships must adapt and become creative in how they maintain a footprint to serve their customers in these areas. The new Jim Pattison Downtown Toyota facility is an excellent example of an innovative approach to this type of challenge.”

Pattison has owned the location since 2007.

“When we purchased it, we had the intention of redeveloping the site to some mixed use but still maintaining [the Toyota] dealership,” said Harbottle.

The nine floors above the dealership in the 13-storey high-rise will be occupied by Lululemon, the athletic apparel company, while the remaining level is leased to a private medical clinic.

Pattison partnered with Reliance Properties, which owned adjacent buildings, to jointly redevelop their properties, including a 60-storey tower.

FIVE YEARS TO GET APPROVAL

Getting the project through Vancouver’s planning bureaucracy was “a brutal process,” said Harbottle. “We had to redesign the thing three times.”

It took five years before city planners green-lighted the final design of the complex, he said.

In an email to Automotive News Canada, the City of Vancouver’s development office said the original rezoning application was submitted in November 2010 and reviewed under its policy covering higher buildings and included a review by an urban design panel, among other steps. A development permit was approved in April 2016.

“Considering the complexity of this project, including legal agreements to be reviewed, the timeline is reasonable and consistent with larger projects within the city for a development application,” the email said.

The project also meets LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold standards, which was another city requirement, Harbottle said.

The dealership “certainly was the most expensive dealership we’ve ever built,” said Harbottle, who declined to disclose the cost. “But we know this would likely be the only dealership ever allowed back in downtown Vancouver.”

Jim Pattison Downtown Toyota is the only full-service dealership in the city’s core, he added.

GOING BIG BY GOING DOWN

Putting 120,000 square feet (11,000 square metres) of dealership into a downtown location required going vertical; the service department and new- and used-vehicle inventories are located below ground level.

This presented unique problems, however. The service hoists, minus the arms, had to be installed into the concrete floor before the building above could proceed, and an extensive air-handling system was needed to ensure that no exhaust fumes escaped into the building above.

“We’ve got massive cardboard compactors and bailers, because everything has to be moved with a vehicle that’s no [taller] than eight feet,” Harbottle said.

The 55,000-square-foot (5,000-square-metre) multitiered showroom and office area, designed by Vancouver architect Bing Thom, affords customers at the reception area a view of Toyota’s entire model lineup.

“They are all ovals in the shape of the Toyota logo, and they progressively get bigger as you go up, with all glass railings,” Harbottle said.

HIGH-CLASS GLASS

Owner Jimmy Pattison, whose business empire began with the purchase of a General Motors dealership in Vancouver in 1961, maintained his usual hands-off approach, Harbottle said.

Pattison’s only concern — whether tree-lined Burrard Street would obscure the display windows — was allayed when he viewed a building model. Harbottle also spent $400,000 to upgrade to imported nonreflective glass.

“When you drive by there during the day, you can see right in, and so it’s noticeably different,” Harbottle said. “And when you light it up at night, it’s spectacular.”