Good-Bye 2 Hotels, Hello 4 Dealerships

A dealer group wants to raze two hotels on 5.6 acres in Glenwood Springs, CO, and replace them with relocated Chevrolet, Nissan, Honda and Subaru dealerships in a combined 300,000-sq.-ft. facility.

Vista Auto Group is proposing an unusual 3-story dealership design that can accommodate 900 cars, most of which would be shielded from view.

“We really probably needed three, 3-acre sites and we couldn't find them,“ Vista President Rod Buscher tells the Glenwood Springs Post Independent. “I just came up with the idea of ‘How about putting all the dealerships on one property and then putting parking on top?’”

A city official commends Vista for trying to concentrate operations rather than spread them out. But the city — west of Denver and north of Aspen in Colorado ski country — needs to review the considerable size of the proposed structure, he adds.

The building will look like four distinct structures rather than one big one, Buscher says. If all goes well, a late 2008 opening is planned.