Truck center breaks ground on new Santa Maria dealership, will create dozens of high paying jobs
SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- A new large scale truck dealership broke ground in Santa Maria Tuesday morning.
"This will be a full stand-alone state-of-the-art dealership, so we're really excited about that," said Doug Howard, President, California Truck Center.
With several city and business leaders on hand, members of California Truck Center dug ceremonial shovels into the dirt at the future home of the business located at 1400 W. Stowell Road.
"We've been servicing this territory from afar out of Bakersfield and it just seemed like the time to invest in a full state-of-the-art truck dealership so we can better serve the needs of the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo communities," said Howard.The dealership will be owned by California Truck Center.
The dealership will be owned by California Truck Center.
The company is headquartered in Fresno and is currently operating in eight
locations with around 600 employees.
"We sell new trucks and used trucks, parts and service. There will be about a 40,000 square foot facility. We hope to employ about 75 employees, factory-trained technicians, parts people, sales, etc," said Howard. "We're going to bring new technologies into the area, more alternate fuel vehicles, electric fuel vehicles and hopefully a level of support that the trucking community hasn't been able to receive with the local offerings."
The company is exactly the type of business that Santa Maria leaders are trying to attract to the city.
"This is a huge addition to the City of Santa Maria," said Suzanne Singh, Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Director. "When they came to us about a year ago to discuss this with us, one of the things that they shared with us is that most of their stores do in the uppers of $72 million or more a year in sales, which for a city like Santa Maria, that's a huge benefit of sales tax revenue coming back into the city."
Singh added the dealership is the latest new business Santa Maria has been able to attract over the past few years.
"Ever since Enos Ranch came into Santa Maria, we've been on the map for a lot of investors, a lot of developers and I would say as this new year's started in January, we've had quite a bit of interest by hotel developers, by all types of residential apartment, housing developers," said Singh. "We see a lot of great things happening. There's a lot of interest in our community right now."
A key element to Central Coast Truck Center is that it will create dozens of high-paying, head of household jobs.
"In our whole organization, we have close to 600 employees and I think the employees on minimum wage you can count on two hands out of those 600," Howard said. "They are all highly-trained, highly-skilled, good paying jobs."
The family-owned company had been looking to expand to the Central Coast for many years.
The dealership will be the largest of its kind in the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties region.
It will also help extend the reach of the company to a wide geographic area around much of California.
"It helps support our brand and our network. When somebody buys a truck from California Truck Center location, they know that they can serviced in any of our markets, from the Grapevine to Yuba City, to the Central Coast to the Nevada border, we'll be able to service and take care of those users," said Howard.
Howard added that construction will begin in the near future.
He expects the business to open within about 14 to 18 months.
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