Brondes Ford Lincoln plans move in Maumee

A customer looks at a car at Brondes Ford in 2010. Brondes Ford Lincoln plans to move to Arrowhead Park in Maumee from its current location on Reynolds Road.

The Blade/Amy E. Voigt
Buy This Image

Brondes is building a new dealership in Arrowhead Park to replace its existing Ford and Lincoln store on Reynolds Road in Maumee, a move officials said will give the company badly needed space and a much more visible location.

A customer looks at a car at Brondes Ford in 2010. Brondes Ford Lincoln plans to move to Arrowhead Park in Maumee from its current location on Reynolds Road.

The new store should be open by next November.

“We’re extremely excited to get out there and be in a much more easily accessed location and be able to take care of our customers even better than we already do,” said Dennis Jackson, the dealership’s general manager.

Brondes has been at its current spot in Maumee since 2001, when it took over the former Hatfield Oldsmobile location. Since then, Mr. Jackson said, they’ve outgrown the location and had been looking for ways to expand.

The dealership in early 2016 struck a deal with ProMedica to buy a 10-acre plot of land at the corner of Arrowhead Drive and Indian Wood Circle for $2.5 million. Officials declined to say how much they were investing in the new building, which will be about 59,000-square-feet. The current store on Reynolds Road is about 36,000-square-feet.

To comply with requirements in Arrowhead Park, Brondes will be adding extensive landscaping around the store, planting more than 100 trees and several hundred more bushes, shrubs, and flowers.  

Because of rules governing franchise locations, Mr. Jackson said Brondes had to stay within a one-mile radius of its current location. However, he said Arrowhead Park is about as good as it gets in Maumee in terms of visibility — something Brondes has struggled with on Reynolds Road.

“They hear Brondes and they think of Secor Road and don’t realize the fact there’s been a Brondes location here for 16 years,” he said.

Brondes’ Toledo dealership has long done well with fleet sales and commercial trucks, but Mr. Jackson said space constraints have prevented the Maumee location from doing the same thing there. With more space, they anticipate ramping up that part of their business.

The new dealership will also provide for more separation of the Ford and Lincoln brands, something Ford Motor Co. has sought from its dealers. While both brands will be sold out of the same showroom, they’ll be able to have dedicated areas for each brand, something that isn’t possible on Reynolds Road.

While Brondes will be the first auto dealer to locate in Arrowhead Park, it’s not the first one to consider the spot. 

“At one point in time there were some luxury car dealers that were looking at that location, but ProMedica held onto their property and they weren’t selling,” Maumee City Administrator John Jezak said. “I think there were a whole number of potential users who would have liked to locate there over the last couple decades, but ProMedica was viewing the property as a long-term hold.”

Lucas County property records show ProMedica still owns more than 36 acres surrounding what it sold to Brondes.

Mr. Jackson said Brondes has 75 employees in Maumee, and will add more when it opens the new dealership.

Brondes is leasing its current location. Mr. Jezak said the owner of the property plans to repurpose it. 

Contact Tyrel Linkhorn at tlinkhorn@theblade.com, 419-724-6134, or on Twitter @TyrelLinkhorn.