Arizona Dealers Voluntarily Pass Up $900,000 City Grant

Scottsdale, AZ's “Motor Mile” auto dealerships will voluntarily forgo nearly $1 million in city-funded marketing money, saying an advertising campaign has brought in business at a rate that exceeded expectations. Two years ago, the Scottsdale Motor Mile Assn. was awarded a controversial five-year, $1.5 million subsidy from the City Council to market and brand the cluster of 32 vehicle makes sold by 11 dealerships primarily along McDowell Road, says the Scottsdale Tribune.

The dealerships had collected $600,000 from the city over the past two years that went toward launching a Web site, advertisements and community programs, but they will not collect the remaining $900,000 from the five-year agreement.

“The idea behind this originally was we thought it would probably take five years to get the word out, but it's doing well and we thought it was a nice thing to do,” association chairman Michael Famileti says of passing on the $900,000.

The agreement was made when the dealerships were seeing declining sales they attributed to a lack of revitalization in south Scottsdale and competition from newer auto malls.

Scottsdale has collected millions of dollars a year in taxes from the Motor Mile dealers.