Legend Harley and Condotta’s make a deal

Posted on 09. Nov, 2009 by yvettedavis in News

by Yvette Davis

Take two buildings in Olds Station. Add two motor sports stores offering a total of eight brands. Shake. Listen to the thunder.

Legend Harley-Davidson owner Dale Bone has put plans for construction of a new retail building at 425 Ohme Garden Road on hold. Instead, on Nov. 14, he will move the Harley-Davidson/Buell store into the Condotta’s Motor Sports building at 3013 GS Center Road and Cary Condotta will shuffle his business next door into the boat shop building at 3031 GS Center Road.

The combination of two motor sports stores in close proximity will provide one-stop-shopping for bikers but leave the 2.75-acre lot Bone purchased for $898,425 in June 2008 lay untouched for now.

Condotta said his decision to move his business to the 3031 GS Center Road building is based on the economy.

“Given the current economy we can do business at a lower volume,” he said. And he will do it in a smaller building as well.

The 3031 GS Center Road building is three years old and 12,000 square feet in size, with 8,000 on the main floor and a 4,000-square-foot loft. The 3013 building, which opened for business in 1996, has 16,000 square feet.

But though Condotta will find himself in smaller digs, the boat showroom won’t look any different, he said. He will just add the rest of the business upstairs. Along with the move, Condotta has dropped the Kymco and Triumph brands from the mix, but kept Polaris, Seadoo, Yamaha and KTM.

And he will trim down to six employees from the eight he has now.

So far he is pleased with his decision to have his competition so near.

“Everybody that goes to the Legend Harley store will have to drive by ours first, and I’m fine with that,” Condotta said. More traffic on the street means more shoppers for everyone, he said, and the friendly competition could boost business for both of them.

Condotta hinted that far from creating a rivalry, he is already planning to work with Legends Harley on promotions, including a joint grand opening.

Although he declined to disclose the length of lease Legend Harley signed, he has high hopes it will be a long-term arrangement.

“Once they are here and see this building, I doubt they would want to build,” he said.

Chrissy Alexander, marketing manager for the Legend Harley-Davidson Wenatchee store, said owners, managers and customers had been frustrated with the long wait to build a new showroom. The store has been working on the project for the past year-and-a-half but has not being able to obtain financing through either their bank or through Harley-Davidson corporate.

According to news reports, the Harley-Davidson company has been hit with financial difficulties.

In an Oct. 15 press release, Harley-Davidson Inc. said it will discontinue manufacture of the Buell brand and unveiled its strategy to increase growth after suffering sales declines of 30.1 percent in this year’s second quarter and 21.3 percent in the third quarter.

So when Condotta approached them about leasing his building, the offer came at the right time for the Wenatchee store, Alexander said.

She said Legend Harley is looking forward to the move.

“Customers will now have a place to park, we can do events and get more inventory out on the floor, and customers will have access to everything they need in one block,” she said.

And moving everything now will put them in a better position come spring when the weather turns nice and riders want to hit the open road, she said.

The store’s current location at 314 S. Wenatchee Ave. is 4,000 square feet and employs 11 to 12 people.

Along with the Harley-Davidson brand, the new store will continue to offer Kawasaki and Suzuki, which Bone purchased from Joe Roberts in May 2007. Bone did not purchase the Honda brand from Roberts, she said.

CORRECTION NOTE: The name of the Legend Harley-Davidson store has been corrected in this article. The name was misspelled in the November issue of the Wenatchee Business Journal.

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