Charles Wayne Properties Helps Reshape New Smyrna Auto Mile
NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. – The New Smyrna Beach Auto Mile has gotten a makeover.
The former New Smyrna Chevrolet, leased to Voila Auto Group by CWP.
With the lease of the former New Smyrna Chevrolet dealership last week, Charles Wayne Properties has helped repurpose multiple automotive properties along the stretch of US-1 that was once home to nearly every car dealer in town.
Brian Adair and Ted Lightman of Charles Wayne Properties have spent several years working with Capital Automotive, a Virginia-based investment company that owned the land and buildings of four automotive properties along north US-1. Collectively these properties were operated as New Smyrna Chevrolet and Mullinax Ford.
Nationally, car manufacturers have encouraged all their dealers to relocate as close as possible to major interstates. Their sales data shows that the closer a car dealership is to an interstate, the more sales they generate.
Both Mullinax Ford and New Smyrna Chevrolet got the message. In the past two years both dealerships built new facilities on State Road 44 close to Interstate 95. When both dealerships abandoned the Auto Mile, the property owners turned to Charles Wayne to help with their disposition.
The process was completed in four transactions over two years. In March 2014, Charles Wayne Properties sold the former Mullinax Ford used car property to a truck fleet sales dealership. Storage developers bought the Mullinax service center and showroom in January 2015. With a new city boat ramp a mile up the road, they plan to offer boat storage. In June 2015 the Mullinax Ford collision center was purchased for use as a scooter dealership.
And in April 2016 Charles Wayne Properties leased the former New Smyrna Chevrolet property – which at 73,000sf makes it the largest retail building in the county – to the Voila Auto Group, a large used-car dealer with two locations in Orlando.
“With blight a major concern along US-1 in New Smyrna Beach, all of these uses go a long way toward keeping this area of the city vibrant and healthy,” Lightman said.
Charles Wayne Properties, Inc., one of Central Florida’s largest commercial brokerage, management and development firms with approximately 1,800,000 sq. ft. of property, which it owns, manages and/or leases.