Palatine To Become New Home For 2 AHeights Car Dealerships

PALATINE, IL — Two Arlington Heights car dealerships will be finding new homes in Palatine once the owners close on a deal with the village in October. The Village Council approved Monday the sale of the former Menards location on West Rand Road to Ed Napleton Automotive Group, which also has dealerships in Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Florida and other states.

Napleton will buy the nearly 9-acre property from the village for $2.5 million, according to the Daily Herald. The car seller will demolish the existing 52,000-square-foot building on the lot in order to build new facilities for its Arlington Heights Subaru and Mazda dealerships, which are currently on Rand Road near Olive Street, the report added.

In addition to the former Menards location, Napleton had already bought the nearby and recently closed Knupper Nursery and Landscape, 1801 W. Rand Road, for $2.9 million, the report stated. The combination of the two properties would give the car seller 14 acres for its two dealerships, the report added.

On its newly acquired property, Napleton plans to build a 24,900-square-foot Subaru dealership and a 17,362-square-foot Mazda dealership, as well as 5,000-square-foot, free-standing car wash, the report stated. Those Palatine facilities should open either in late 2019 or early 2020, the report added.

"It'll be one of the top four, five sales tax generators in the village," Palatine Village Manager Reid Ottesen told the Herald concerning the new dealerships. "It's tremendous revenue for us. I think the other dealerships in that [Rand Road] corridor … they've been very, very successful. So this is just going to add to that success."

Stephen Napleton, the company's chairman, told the Herald that the auto group is relocating its two dealerships because of size constraints of the location they share in Arlington Heights. The dealerships' new home in Palatine also is expected to rake in more revenue for the car seller, which generated $55 million in business in Arlington Heights, he added.

"It's a dated facility that we've outgrown," Napleton told the Herald concerning the Arlington Heights facilities "And the [car] manufacturers want first-class representation that we plan on giving them."

The village purchased the Rand Road property for $8 million after Menards closed the location in 2009, the report stated. That same year, Wolff's Flea Market began leasing the location, paying the village $120,000 in rent annually, along with other expenses and property taxes that ranged from about $65,000 to more than $111,000 between 2014 and 2016, the report added.

More via the Daily Herald

The former Menards location along Rand Road that will become the new home for two car dealerships currently in Arlington Heights. (Image via Google Earth)