Dolan maps out plans to relocate Lexus dealership

Tom Dolan long has liked the corner of South Virginia Street and Green Acres Drive as a location for an auto dealership.

He likes it so much, in fact, that Dolan Auto Group this month purchased 6.7 acres at the corner as the site for a new dealership facility for Lexus of Reno.

A vacant dealership facility that’s been standing about 35 years on the property will be demolished, and Clark & Sullivan Construction of Sparks will begin work on the new Lexus dealership.

MBA Architecture & Interior Design of Reno is the architect on the project.

The Lexus dealership — one of five franchises operated by Dolan Auto Group in Reno — currently is located at 3225 Mill St.

The company plans to keep that 11-year-old facility after completion of the new Lexus of Reno facility, Dolan said last week. It will be used as a “get-ready” location for inspection, detailing and final preparation of new and used cars for delivery to customers.

Dolan said the dealership’s current location in a largely industrial area at the north edge of Reno-Tahoe International Airport doesn’t fit with the profile of Lexus buyers.

“I don’t think our customers are being treated right,” he said.

The new building will be constructed to meet new standards for dealership design announced by Lexus a couple of months ago.

The new showroom design, for instance, shifts to black-and-platinum signage to replace the black-and-gold look used by the brand for the past 25 years. And the exterior of its new dealership facilities will be glass-fronted — what the company calls a jewel-box look — rather than the ribbed stucco of existing facilities.

The new facility is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2015.

Dolan was awarded the Lexus franchise for Reno in 1991. Dolan Auto Group also operates franchises for four other brands — Toyota, Scion, Mazda and Kia — in Reno from dealership facilities on Kietzke Lane and the far southern reaches of Virginia Street.

The company’s 300,000-square-foot Toyota and Scion facility near Kietzke Lane and Plumb Street is the largest Toyota dealership on the West Coast.