Puyallup quickly becoming a home for car buyers

With nearly every make and model of car and truck available for sale, the critical mass of auto dealerships in Puyallup has branded the East Pierce County city as a destination center for the best prices and widest selection.

And the numbers don’t lie — people from all across the region have come to purchase cars and trucks in record numbers. In 2015 alone, dealerships such as Harnish Auto Group saw sales at its Chevy Buick GMC dealer on River Road jump 41 percent year over year, and Korum Nissan on North Meridian reported selling more than 2,000 vehicles off its lot.

These positive returns are part of a national trend. In 2015, U.S. auto sales soared to a record high of nearly 17.5 units. And according to Steven Szakaly, chief economist of the National Automobile Dealers Association, U.S. auto sales will set an all-time record in 2016.

“More than 17.7 million new light vehicles will be purchased or leased this year, about a 2 percent increase from 2015, and setting back-to-back records,” Szakaly said in a January press release. “It will be the seventh consecutive year of auto sales growth.”

This continuing surge in sales has brought renewed confidence to the likes of Harnish and Korum Nissan, so much so that the respective dealerships over the past year have launched expansion projects.

Korum Nissan is set to open an expanded 2.3-acre new and used car lot at the end of February, located at the corner of Valley Avenue and North Meridian. This will allow the dealership to add more than 150 more cars and trucks to its fleet and will complete a contiguous 10 acres to its footprint.

Luke Korum, general sales manager at Korum Nissan, said what helps drive new car sales is the increase in customer incentives straight from the manufacturer.

“It’s a good car economy,” Korum said. “We want to sell more cars. Car sales are excellent, and even better in Puyallup thanks to the strong loyal customer base.”

The expanded lot will allow Korum Nissan to take on a new line of economical vehicles like the top selling models, Nissan Sentra and Nissan Altima, which get more than 40 miles per gallon. Korum is also excited to bring on more than 50 units of Nissan’s new 2016 Titan XD pickup truck, powered by a Cummins turbo diesel, 5.0-liter V8 engine.

“We’re excited about the new diesel Titan truck, and we’d love to put as many of those on the lot as possible,” Korum said. “It just came out and we’ve had a limited amount.”

Within the next two years, the dealership also plans to construct a 5,000-square-foot, two-story showroom on the 2.3-acre lot, Korum said.

Meanwhile, Harnish Auto Group’s Chevy Buick GMC dealership is in the midst of constructing a two-story parking garage on its lot to provide for added capacity.

The idea to build a parking structure started more than a year ago, said Keith Houghton, general manager of the Chevy Buick GMC dealership.

The dealership was in need of more capacity, but the challenge was the dealership is landlocked. The only way to grow, Houghton said, was up.

The design originally called for one floor, which would allow for 230 parking spaces. But very quickly, the dealership realized it needed more.

“We went back to the city to get approved for two floors for a total of about 400 cars,” Houghton explained.

Situated behind the Chevy Buick GMC and Subaru dealerships, the parking garage, when opened later this year, will include four quick-lube stations, automated car wash stations and showroom space on the ground floor. The second floor will provide additional parking for expanded inventory.

“(Puyallup) is a great car town,” Houghton said. “We will have better service and more room to give our customers better service. The more inventory we have to offer, the better service we can offer our customers. It makes us even more of a destination dealership.”

While existing dealerships in Puyallup continue to do well and grow, CarMax, the largest used-car dealership chain in the nation, plans to break ground on a 17-acre lot this spring along Valley Avenue to the south of Korum Nissan.

“Puyallup is a great area for CarMax,” said Lindsey Duke, a CarMax spokeswoman. “It has a good population, as well as strong retail businesses and car dealerships. The ease of access for customers along with visibility from the highway and future highway extension is also a plus.”

The arrival of CarMax will be a boon for the city, said Tom Utterback, Puyallup’s development services director.

“It’s a different brand,” he said. “They’re large and national. They increase the radius of people coming to a community looking for cars.”

Of course, with the continued growth of car dealerships in Puyallup and anticipated record breaking car sales this year, people living, working and playing in Puyallup are all the better because of it.

Puyallup is ranked among the top 10 cities in Washington state for total sales tax collected per capita, Utterback said.

In each of the last two years, vehicle enterprises in Puyallup have contributed about 30 to 32 percent of total annual sales tax to the general fund, which is above the average of 25 percent for most Washington state cities.

But while car dealership expansions do mean more car sales, which in turn means more sales tax to the city’s general fund, Utterback said what is equally impactful are the dealerships’ contributions to the Puyallup community that support the quality of life for residents.

For example, when CarMax eventually opens its 17-acre site in Puyallup, there is a good chance that the company will contribute significantly to the community.

According to Duke, The CarMax Foundation since its inception in 2003 has contributed more than $25 million to communities in the U.S.

This story was originally published February 22, 2016 at 4:22 PM with the headline "Puyallup quickly becoming a home for car buyers."