Carlsbad luxury car dealership project moves forward

By: BARBARA HENRY - Staff Writer | Thursday, March 22, 2007 12:02 AM PDT ∞

CARLSBAD -- A company that operates six dealerships within Car Country Carlsbad is proposing to put a separate, luxury auto mall on the west side of Interstate 5, near the Poinsettia Coaster station and the region's wastewater treatment facility.

"It's an exciting project and we really look forward to bringing it to fruition," company consultant Jack Henthorn said Wednesday.

The dealership proposal was submitted to the city's planning department last month, and the city expects there will be a public hearing sometime this fall.

Plans call for the Hoehn company to build a two-story, 117,000-square-foot Mercedes-Benz dealership as well as a smaller, 27,050-square-foot structure that will house Jaguar and Land Rover dealerships.

Both structures will go on a 23-acre parcel along Avenida Encinas just south of the Encina Wastewater Treatment Plant and just north of Hoehn's existing Porsche dealership.

The proposal would create an auto mall complex between the Poinsettia Lane and Palomar Airport Road intersections. The area's existing Car Country area, on the east side of the freeway, is north of Palomar Airport Road.

The Encina Wastewater Authority, which runs the regional sewage treatment plant, is looking forward to the arrival of a new neighbor because it stands to make money off the deal, an official said Wednesday.

The wastewater authority owns the vacant land where the dealership complex is proposed, and it expects to collect $800,000 to $900,000 from the first year's lease payments in 2009, said Michael Hogan, the authority's general manager. He added that the payments are expected to increase annually after that, based on market conditions and inflation.

What the agency will do with the extra cash is still being debated, Hogan said. The Encina plant is owned by six entities -- the cities of Carlsbad, Encinitas and Vista, and the Leucadia Wastewater District, the Vallecitos Water District and the Buena Sanitation District.

Encina has owned the land since the mid-1990s and originally planned to use it as for plant expansion. However, the agency now forecasts that it won't need the property even beyond the year 2025, Hogan said.

Despite the growth in the coastal region, people aren't producing as much sewage individually as they once were -- all those low-flow toilets and shower heads are working, he said. And the agency still has empty land within its existing treatment plant area to handle the growth that will occur, he said.

For its part, Hoehn also has high hopes for the Avenida Encinas site. It plans to move its current Mercedes-Benz dealership from the Car Country area on Paseo del Norte into the proposed luxury dealership complex, Henthorn said. The Jaguar and Land Rover dealerships will be new additions for the company, he said.

Being next to a sewage treatment plant could be seen by some as a downside, but there are decided benefits to the site, Henthorn said. The area doesn't have the Spanish-style architectural restrictions that the Car Country area has, so the dealership facilities can have the modern style now favored by national automotive industry, he said.

There also will be space to spread out. The new Mercedes-Benz dealership area would be 60 percent bigger than the current dealership. Among the proposed features of the project will be an obstacle course so potential Land Rover buyers can see what the vehicles are capable of, Henthorn added.

There's even room for expansion, he said. Plans call for the company to eventually expand the Porsch dealership and possibly to add dealerships in the area, he said.

One of the city's key issues with the project will be making sure it provides enough parking places -- something that's in extremely short supply in the Car County area, city senior planner Van Lynch said.

"We are going to mandate standards that are equal to or above the existing Car County Carlsbad because we know there's a parking problem (there)," he said.

The project must receive the approval of the city's Planning Commission and City Council as well as the state Coastal Commission.

-- Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.

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