Park Place Lexus Mission Viejo is making itself at home in Orange County, owner Kenneth Schnitzer said.
Last October, Schnitzer’s Dallas-based Park Place Dealerships luxury dealer group bought the former Lexus of Mission Viejo and has been working to get the dealership up to Park Place standards.
Park Place Lexus of Mission Viejo is the company’s first dealership outside Texas. Park Place has 10 locations and sells 12 luxury brands, including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Maserati and Bentley.
Schnitzer expects to spend the next 18 months making improvements and expanding the Mission Viejo dealership.
In the past seven months, the dealer has been working on “people and processes,” Schnitzer said.
“We’ve had some turnover,” he said. “We’re looking for people to fit into our culture. It’s not easy to get hired by Park Place.”
Finding quality workers always is a challenge, no matter where you do business, he said.
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Shabby Chic sofa slipcovers: store doubling size at Fashion Island |
The dealer group was the only one to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, according to Schnitzer.
The president gives the award to companies and groups that are focused on seven areas including people, planning and leadership. Baldrige was a U.S. secretary of commerce in the 1980s.
This year, given the lagging economy that’s weighing on dealers, Park Place is focusing on customer service basics and used auto sales. While new auto sales are down, it’s seen a 25% boost in parts and service, he said.
There have been a few quirks when it comes to operating in California compared to Texas, including that there’s no “blue law” here. The blue law allows dealers to only be open for six days. Here, to compete, dealers need to be open seven days a week. Schnitzer said he prefers the Texas blue law because he gets a day off.
The luxury dealer group, founded in 1987, models itself after high-end businesses such as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. and Nordstrom Inc.
Park Place competes with Newport Lexus and Lexus of Westminster, as well as other luxury dealers, such as Mercedes-Benz of Anaheim and Flet-cher Jones Motor-cars in Newport Beach.
Schnitzer said he’s always looking for other dealerships.
“It’s got to be the right location, the right franchise,” he said.
More Shabby Chic
Shabby Chic furniture store has nearly doubled its size to 4,100 square feet at Fashion Island inside the Atrium Court. Shabby Chic opened at Fashion Island in 2001 and is the largest store within designer Rachel Ashwell’s collection of 13 stores. Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic was founded in 1989 with the opening of its first store in Santa Monica.
Disney Store Closings?
News that Burbank-based Walt Disney Co. is shuttering several Disney Store shops means some OC stores could have an uncertain future. Walt Disney bought the Disney Store mall chain, made up of about 220 stores, from Children’s Place Retail Stores Inc. Disney recently said it’s planning to close nearly half of those stores in the U.S. No word yet on how local stores will be affected by the closings. Disney Stores are at Westfield MainPlace, Westminster Mall, Laguna Hills Mall, South Coast Plaza and Laguna Hills Mall.
Active Staying Active
Active Ride Shop has opened at the Irvine Spectrum Center. It now has seven stores in OC, including at The Camp in Costa Mesa, Tustin and Mission Viejo. Active Ride, based in Mira Loma, will be opening another store at The Strand in Huntington Beach this fall.
BritWeek Baby
South Coast Plaza tagged on BritWeek 2008, which runs through the end of May, with an afternoon tea last week. It also highlighted British stores at the mall during the event, such as Ted Baker, Molton Brown, Burberry, Jimmy Choo, John Lobb, Jo Malone and Sassoon Salon. The event was founded last year by 19 Entertainment, the British production company for “American Idol.”
Portland Redevelopment
The Portland Development Commission selected Lab Holding LLC, developer and owner of The Lab and The Camp in Costa Mesa, to revitalize Portland’s Centennial Mills 11 acre site, a redevelopment project for the city.
The Lab Holding project, which will be called Centennial Mills, is an urban market with a green bent.
The Portland Development Commission said that residents favored the Lab Holding project called Seed. Lab Holding’s venture is set to replace an aging flour mill alongside the Willamette River in the Pearl District.
Lab Holding competed for the project with Baltimore-based Cordish Co. and Nitze-Stagen & Co. of Seattle. The Portland commission issued a request for proposals one year ago.
The Oregonian newspaper editorial compared the three projects. It said Lab Holding’s Seed project is “much smaller in scale, revamps the old mills but sprouts no new buildings. Instead, in a subdued orgy of sustainability, it proposes a fiesta of market stalls, a water theater, a rain pavilion, an orchard, a greenhouse, a farm, a forage garden and a fire pit. Green-wise, we just arrived.”
