Thunder Bay’s Halfway Motors Opens Brand New Facility
by Scott A. Sumner
www.thunderbaybusiness.ca
One November day in Thunder Bay on Memorial we saw a brand new 13,000 square floor Nissan dealership building pop up right before our eyes. You see for the previous 5 months behind the previous Halfway Motors building a new $2.5 million facility had been under
construction.
“ It was kinda funny when construction was happening because customers would ask us where is your new building, as it was perfectly hidden behind the old building. When we knocked the old building down in just over a day all of a sudden this new one seemingly came out of now where for some people,” smiled Marcus Luft who works in every department of the dealership including the collision centre and may be destined to be company’s General Manager at some point.
Halfway Motors started on Hodder Avenue in the 50’s and 60’s owned by the Trevisanutto family. It was a grocery store then and they started selling Studebakers and Jeep. They moved into the old International Transit building (they repaired buses) on Memorial in 1965. The company took on Datsun and eventually Studebaker had stopped as a brand. They then had to choose between Jeep and Datsun and chose Datsun. Nissan owned Datsun and decided to get rid of the Datsun name and be called Nissan.
“ It is a state of the art building. For example the light system we have in the showroom is designed to detect the amount of ambient light coming in from the outside so it adjusts the electricity use accordingly. We upgraded the windows and insulation to increase thermal efficiencies so we use less energy. The lighting system in the shop is a lot brighter with high efficiency bulbs. Comparing to the old building anything will look much better,” smiled Luft. “ Our new building is called the Nissan NREDI, a nationwide dealer program in which everyone has to conform. There is few areas where you can take liberties but not many. One of their focus areas is this high bright 5 vehicle showroom which makes the vehicle looks better.
Owner John Trevisanutto and his business partners in the building side of things invested $2.5 million in this building. They are very bullish about Thunder Bay and the future as well as the brand. It was a bit of a leap of faith I think for these guys at their stage of life to invest so much money.”
“ We have the main show room with sales staff and the sales manger. John also has his office on the first floor. The original plan called for his office to be on the second floor but he altered that because he likes to be able to greet and talk to the customers. That is his strength,” noted Luft. “ When you come in the front door, service is straight ahead. You check in and talk with the service
writer. We have 7 bays and a two car wash bay. We now have 5 roll up doors into the shop where before we only had one. The techs don’t get in each others way. Parts are on the main floor by the service and there is a section upstairs as well. Also upstairs is where a lunch
room, accounting area, board room and the techs have a shower. The collision centre is across the road. We have a good chunk of land here and now can put almost 100% of our vehicles out front.”
Halfway Motors are also adjacent to a new Kia dealership going up in the former Midas building near the Superstore. “ That will be a nice build for them. The old Kia building will stay and there will be some other use for it. Originally we had a Volvo set up there but not for new vehicles, but we can still service them, “ said Luft.“ Nissan as a brand is very forward thinking. They put a strong emphasis on economical cars that have high value in them, like the Versa for example. It comes in well under $20,000 is well built and efficient. It is similar with the Rogue. Looking ahead Nissan will be the first manufacturer that has an all electric vehicle. There is a strong emphasis on the environment and efficiencies.”
Be sure to visit the new Halfway Motors facility. You will no doubt be very impressed as I was!
