After opening the first Finish Line Auto Club in Westlake in 2017, father and son Rick and Tony Principe set their sights on Orange County—known for its car collecting culture.
As car collectors themselves, they knew OC lacked the space for valuable collections, and “we knew how to put those pieces together,” Tony told the Business Journal.
Four years later, they opened an 80,000-square-foot Finish Line club near John Wayne Airport. Recently renovated, it has become a key blueprint for future clubs.
The makeover of the four-year-old Costa Mesa outpost adds new amenities and nine more garage spaces for local clients to store their automobile collections. The campus now has 40 garage condominiums, spanning 100,000 square feet across two buildings.
“We have 40 different personalities,” Rick told the Business Journal.
Members include owners from Hawaii, Montana and Mexico City, who tend to buy a few spaces and combine them.
To improve the hospitality services, Finish Line opened a new rooftop bar and open-air lounge where members and guests can watch planes land and take-off from the airport.
The renovation also included upgrades to the main lobby and elevator to provide direct access to the roof.
“We knew that there was excess land to be able to build,” Tony said.
The owners designed the club to be a venue for special events as well.
“Costa Mesa reflects Finish Line Auto Club’s vision of creating a facility where collectors can transform garages into private car galleries, personal retreats, and extensions of the home,” the Principes said in a statement.
In October, Finish Line hosted an exclusive opening event to mark the upgrades. It was one of the largest gatherings of Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing and Roadster models.
Real Estate Background
For the Principe family, Finish Line, which plans to grow from three to five locations, is a combination of their background in real estate development and their passion for collecting cars.
Rick founded Westcord Commercial Real Estate Services in 1969 and has since developed and renovated over 80 properties. His son Tony joined Westcord in 1986 and as president has handled more than seven million square feet of property. Finish Line clubs are developed by their T.R. Funding firm based in Westlake.
“Our experience in developing has allowed us to meet a lot of interesting people and clients and contractors,” Rick said. “And in addition, with our car passion that we’ve had, we had a lot of our clients reach us and said, ‘We want a small place to store our cars.’”
In Orange County, “these didn’t really exist. So, we had to create something that would fulfill all of this instead of trying to find separate locations for everybody,” Rick explained.
It was the social aspect of fellow collectors gathering and visiting each other’s garages that encouraged the Principes to further develop the hospitality pieces.
They opened a club in Calabasas this year—about 13 years after they first purchased the lot. Next year, they will break ground on the largest facility yet in Scottsdale at 200,000 square feet. The Arizona location will feature a rooftop lounge and a club space like Costa Mesa along with new elements as well.
“We’re evolving the model,” Tony said.
The Westlake location is also set for a third phase of renovations.
Afterwards, the owners plan to expand to the rest of the country. This includes looking for a second location in south Orange County. Another location is planned in Palm Desert.
“What we’re doing right now is we’re nitpicking the areas where we think it’s going to be successful,” Rick said. “We need to make sure wherever we go, whether it’s Dallas, whether it’s Las Vegas, has that same formula in there, before we invest the millions of dollars we do.”
