Campagni breaks ground on new auto dealership

In a positive sign for the business community of Carson City, about 100 people attended a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for the new home of Carson City Toyota on South Carson Street.

"This is a pretty important day in our lives, for my family, myself, and we have been working on this for a long time," Carson City Toyota owner Dick Campagni told the assembled crowd. "It's been a fun experience going through this whole thing, working with the city of Carson, starting with Joe McCarthy, the mayor and the board of supervisors, and the city manager."

Campagni, his family, top managers and government officials posed for photos with golden shovels in hand.

Mayor Bob Crowell expressed to the crowd what this new facility means for the city.

"I can't tell you how proud Carson City is to have a quality citizen and quality businessman like Dick Campagni in our community," Crowell said. "It's a great thing that we can help bring this to fruition. We are going to do great things in this community with people like Dick and his family here."

The new 50,000-square-foot facility on the west side of South Carson Street will cover approximately 7.5 acres, with entrances from Carson and Curry streets. The facility will replace the current car lot located on 1.9 acres at South Carson Street and Koontz Lane.

"I'm not only excited about our employees, but about our customers, too," Campagni said. "We've got a small service area, a small customer lounge that we had to work out of, and now we're going to have state-of-the-art everything. I think it's going to be a real blessing for the community, our customers and our employees."

Work already was going on, and earth movers made the site ready for construction to begin.

"It's a very positive thing for Carson City, and it's great that Carson City recognizes a local business that has been here a long time, and had a really great willingness to work with them and make this project go forward," said Bill Miles of Miles Construction, which is in charge of building the new facility. "It's very nice to see the south end of Carson City developing with new, viable retail businesses."

Miles said that more than 200 people will be working on the project, which is scheduled to open mid-January 2010.

The project was aided by approximately $4.1 million in redevelopment funds provided by the city. Crowell expressed how important it is that car dealers like Campagni stay in Carson City.

"Auto dealers are responsible for probably 30 to 40 percent of the sales taxes in this town," Crowell said. "They are a great part of how the rest of this town lives. We wouldn't be able to do the services we have without having good quality auto dealers."

Campagni said they are undecided about what to do with the old facility, but are considering moving the company's Mazda and Hyundai sales from across the street.