Tuesday, Oct. 02 2012 5:54PM
AUTOMOTIVE
All in the family
State-of-the-art Roberts Chevrolet opens in Lee’s Summit
By Toriano Porter
tporter@lsjournal.com
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closeThe bustle inside Roberts Chevrolet implied something was brewing.
Employees, upper management and the owner of Roberts Chevrolet of Lee’s Summit, were one day from opening its spank new state-of-the-art car dealership and the swiftness of movement made it clear the company was getting last minute details squared away.
Nothing is easy when building from the ground up, but the Roberts Automotive Group’s 38,000-square-foot operation built on six acres of land at 945 S.E. Oldham Parkway in Lee’s Summit opened Oct. 2 just seven months after breaking ground.
Roberts Chevrolet is a full-service dealership that includes new and used car sales, service, two quick service lanes and a collision center. The collision center will include an environmentally controlled paint booth.
“We’ll have a grand opening the first part of November,” Keith Roberts, president of Roberts Automotive Group, said Oct. 1 from inside the dealership’s not-quite-set-up-fully office space. “We don’t want to get something big going until we get all settled in here. The official deal is (Oct. 2) and we’re officially in business, but it’ll take a couple of weeks to get grounded here.”
With the construction of the new facility, Roberts said the family-owned business is also committed to becoming a sustainable community partner in Lee’s Summit. With a focus to reduce energy consumption and landfill waste, the dealership will feature – in addition to a litany of Chevy model vehicles – a 10,000-gallon waste oil container to feed three waste oil heaters that will keep the service drive, two quick service lanes and the collision center warm.
A white roof will assist to reduce the heat island effect and LED lighting is located throughout the parking lot. Kansas City construction company Fogel-Anderson was selected to manage construction of the facility.
“(We’re) excited about it,” Roberts said of the opening in Lee’s Summit. “We’re hoping to get off with a bang here.”
Mike Robinson, who joined the organization in 2000, is a partner in Roberts Chevrolet and will serve as general manager. The Roberts family also owns Roberts Chevrolet Buick in Platte City and Heartland Chevrolet in Liberty.
“We’re excited to be here,” Robinson said. “It’s a magnificent facility. We’re just excited to be here. (We want) to grow the business and do what we’ve been doing all along. It’s a new facility, it’s a great area. We just want to grow. (The move has) been talked about for quite awhile. We’ve been communicating to our customers for along time that this is happening, so we’re pretty excited to be here.”
