Automotive News - October 14, 2019 - 42

42 * OCTOBER 14, 2019

RETAIL REALITIES

Ready for a rebuild
The Hennessy brothers have gone from roof
leaks to - nearly - a shiny new dealership
as Ford retailers.
2014: Hennessy Automobile Cos. buys

Malcolm Cunningham Ford.
December 2017: City approves building

concept for new dealership.
April 2018: Used-vehicle sales move to

rented building down the street.
June 2018: Construction begins.

August 2018: New-vehicle sales start

operating out of construction trailers.
May 2019: New Quick Lane service

operation opens.
January 2020: New dealership building

expected to open.
May 2020: Project expected to be finished.

continued from previous page

where he's usually based, but he's carving out an office for
himself in the new Ford building.
Peter Hennessy, 59, who works out of one of the family's
Lexus stores down the street, said the brothers saw potential when the former Malcolm Cunningham Ford store hit
the market.
"It was underperforming relative to Ford standards, so
there was certainly upside," Peter Hennessy said. "We were
able to look at the existing earnings and think that we could
improve them based on our reputation in Atlanta."
Maybe more important, Ford consolidated its dealer
network during the Great Recession. The primary market
area that Hennessy Ford is in dropped from three Ford
stores to one.
"That's one thing that got our attention," Steve Hennessy
said.
And that area is now booming. New apartments and
houses are on the rise. The area's population has increased by 10 percent, or about 57,000 people, since 2010,
said Kevin Giacomini, Ford Motor Co. regional sales and
service manager for Atlanta.
Hennessy Ford-Lincoln's sales have soared in the years
since the 2014 acquisition. The dealership sold 1,853 vehicles in 2013 and is on track to sell just more than 4,000 vehicles for all of 2019, according to the Hennessys. In metro
Atlanta, the dealership is now No. 3 in new-vehicle sales
for both Ford and Lincoln, Ford confirmed.
Ford is excited about the investment Hennessy is making, Giacomini told Automotive News in an email.
It's "well known as a family-owned company that cares
about their customers, employees and the communities
in which they do business," Giacomini wrote. "The new
Ford and Lincoln showrooms along with an all-new service department will serve their growing number of customers for years to come."

Project scope: $25 million?

So just how big is Hennessy's investment in the new
dealership? Steve Hennessy declined to share a total.
Bill Heifner, president of Renier Construction Corp. in
Columbus, Ohio, which specializes in dealership projects
but is not involved in the Hennessy renovation, estimated
such a project could cost in the range of $20 million to $25
million given its scope.
The dealership is landlocked on 12 acres in the middle of a
stretch of dealerships on the northeast side of Atlanta. The
site, which started with seven structures and will go to three,
moves uphill with a lot of elevation change and rocky soil.
It will be a 30-month project by the time it's done, with
new buildings totaling 110,000 square feet. The main
dealership alone, a two-story showroom and service
building, is 88,000 square feet. An 18,000-square-foot
Quick Lane service facility, with commercial fleet service
space attached, opened in May. A new car wash and a renovated reconditioning center rounds it out.
If land had been available for greenfield construction,
the cost would have been less, and the timeline would
have spanned about 15 months, said Scott Daugherity, senior project manager at PRO Building Systems in Atlanta,
the Hennessys' longtime contractor.
But rebuilding on an existing site where the dealer must
still sell and service cars takes extra planning and time.

The Hennessys hired a
contractor experienced in
helping dealerships continue
business during construction.

"The real challenge is you've got to find a construction
company capable of keeping you in business," Peter Hennessy said. "Anybody can do a greenfield site. To have a
contractor be able to stay on budget, keep you in business,
not cut your power and phone lines, not get shut down by
the prevailing authorities because you're putting people
in harm's way - there are a lot of challenges you face
when you rebuild on your own property."
One snag that slowed this project by a month: Crews encountered "bad dirt" when preparing a portion of the site.
That bad dirt? It included pieces of a burnt house, a
washing machine and tires - debris that had been
dumped into a pit and paved over decades earlier. It all
had to be removed, and trailer loads of fresh dirt were
brought in to fill the void.

Fixed-ops focus

The Hennessy family's point person on the site is Sammy
Hayes, fixed operations director at the store. Hayes came on
board in early 2017 to kick-start the store's parts-and-service
business. He also influenced the building plans.
The big change was putting in more capacity to service
fleet and commercial vehicles, making the project size
even larger than Ford expected, Peter Hennessy said.
But the Hennessys figure the commercial specialty and
added service capacity will set their dealership apart in a
metro area that still has 22 Ford dealerships and eight Lincoln outlets. Hennessy Ford is the only one inside the perimeter highway ringing Atlanta's core.
When done, the dealership will have 48 bays in the main
building, 28 for reconditioning, accessories and detail work,
plus 18 in the Quick Lane building, including the commercial fleet space.
For Hayes, 52, this is his second stint at this dealership.
He worked at the store for six months in 2008, two owners ago, when he was in Ford's dealer development program. "Distraught" when that program was shelved
during the recession, Hayes, now in the National Automobile Dealers Association's dealer school courtesy of the
Hennessys, left for another metro Atlanta Ford dealership.
Fixed operations "is the backbone of a dealership," said
Hayes, who grew up working on cars with his dad, a tire

Hennessy Automobile Cos.

Robert Hennessy founded the company as a
Cadillac dealership after a career at General
Motors as an executive with its Motors
Holding division.
Year started: 1964

Footprint: 11 dealerships in metro Atlanta

representing 11 brands and 16 franchises
Employees: 1,200

Second generation: Brothers Mark, 65;

Steve, 63; and Peter, 59; each oversees a
chunk of the company.
Third generation: Mark's son, Robert, 35;

and Steve's son, William, 34

shop operator. He joined the Navy at 17 and became an
aircraft mechanic. After a short stint working on planes at
Delta Air Lines, Hayes returned to cars and began working
his way up the management ranks at a Ford store in his
hometown of Greenville, S.C.
The unfailingly polite Hayes, whom the Hennessys have
dubbed "the wizard of fixed," is visibly excited as he leads a
tour of the under-construction service department. His
equipment budget was $3.6 million, Hayes said, and the resulting modernized department, including air conditioning
in the repair bays, will help attract and retain technicians.
Hayes already has done a good job of that, Peter Hennessy said. Employee turnover in service is 12 percent, according to Hayes, a strong number considering the store is
in the midst of construction.
"Knowing what was on the horizon, people stuck with
us," Hennessy said.
The employees who have stuck it out are excited for the
transformation from the leaky-roof days.
Jonathan Chambers, a new-vehicle sales consultant, recalls telling customers " 'Hey, watch out, don't step on the
water puddle right there.' You had to make a lot of excuses
for it being an old building, when you're asking them to
pay $60-70,000 for a vehicle."
The new building will improve the customer experience
"100 percent," Chambers said.
For the Hennessys, the project is a long-term play.
"We've been in the business for 55 years. We take a longterm approach to our investments, and we look at our relationships with our manufacturers as a partnership," Peter Hennessy said. "And when you have a great brand in
the right location in a market like Atlanta, you can afford
to invest for the long run." a
Lindsay VanHulle contributed to this report.

Sammy Hayes, Hennessy fixed ops director and construction
point person, says the new facility will help attract techs.

Amy Wilson is retail editor
for Automotive News.

Automotive News - October 14, 2019

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