Solomon breaks ground for new dealership
Groundbreaking festivities recently took place to officially begin construction on the new 21,000 square foot Solomon Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealership located off the Centerville Exit at the routes 43 and 40 interchange. Various local and regional officials participated along with representatives from the Chrysler Division field management team. The new facility is being built by General Industries headquartered in Charleroi, and will open to the public this spring. According to Norman Solomon, president of the dealership, “with access and convenience to the new Mon Valley Expressway, our new facility will be able to service customers from the Pleasant Hills Area through the Mon Valley to Brownsville and Uniontown. To date we are the first sizeable commercial business to locate on this busy corridor.” Solomon plans to double the size of his current workforce to 75 employees with the opening of this new facility.
In 1993 Solomon opened his first Chrysler Dodge 5-Star Dealership in Carmichaels, and then expanded into his second dealership in Fredericktown. The two dealerships, servicing Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, will boast a $7 million inventory by displaying more than 400 new and 200 used vehicles. The new dealership will feature 11 service bays and a huge parts inventory.
According to Solomon, “although we are one of the largest Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep dealerships in western Pennsylvania, we have built our reputation on providing personal customer service. We offer bumper to bumper sales and service with customer satisfaction being our utmost priority.” Solomon has been in the automotive business since 1975, and has received numerous Chrysler awards for outstanding sales and customer service in addition to being nominated for the Small Business Association’s Person of the Year Award in 1995.
General Industries, one of the leading commercial contractors in the region, is constructing the new dealership as a design built project. As part of a design-build team, the owner of the project, the general contractor and the architect form an alliance to share the responsibility of the project from initial planning to final build-out. The goal of a design-build team is to ensure completion of the project in a timely and cost efficient manner. For this project, Gerard- Nagar & Associates is the architect, and McMillen Engineering is responsible for site design. The 21,000-square foot Varco-Pruden steel-framed building will feature a high profile, glass curtain wall front entrance to showcase new automobiles, and a covered area for service drop off.
“We are proud to be chosen as the general contractor for the first major commercial development along the new Route 43 corridor”, says Donald Ivill, General Industries’ president.E
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