Lee Auto Group completes 24-hour move to US 41

Lee Auto Group had less than three months to plan moving into a new used car dealership fronting U.S. 41 in south Fort Myers. Owner Kyle Lee and his team pulled off the actual move in less than 24 hours. 

On May 28, Lee hired several local businesses to help him and his employees make the move from 8181 Mainline Parkway, off Alico Road, less than 4 miles north to 16065 S. Tamiami Trail. 

On May 29, Lee Auto Group opened at the new location, ready to sell cars. A couple of employees remained at the old site with flyers, redirecting potential customers to the new one. A grand opening celebration will be scheduled for later this year. 

“We numbered all the cars,” Lee said of the preplanning. “We had 10 staged and ready to go for the drivers.” 

Lee said one advantage of running a small business — Lee Auto Group has about 85 employees — is the ability to make decisions quickly without having to navigate layers of corporate approval. 

To facilitate the move, Lee hired outside companies to handle cleaning, moving services, truck transportation and the transfer of internet and computer systems to the new dealership. 

Vertex Cleaning & Janitorial, Eagle Moving, CRS Technology Consultants — all Lee County-based businesses — helped Lee orchestrate the move on the same day, as did a team of 10 insured drivers who each planned to make 24 trips to move 240 vehicles. Two of those vehicles sold at the old site on the eve of the move, bringing the number down to 238. 

Lee hired Custom Coat Epoxy to put down a new, polished floor in his new maintenance facility. 

Lee Auto Group paid $3.75 million on March 11 for what had been an empty former recreational vehicle dealership. 

“We tried to keep everything local,” Lee said. “We went through all local vendors. Some of the vendors had purchased vehicles from us before. We’re a small, local business, and I want to support other local businesses. We definitely couldn’t have done all of this ourselves. We’re doing it all in a day. If our staff had done it, it would have taken a week, and we would have had to shut down. We didn’t want to do that.” 

The next order of business will be to get used to the new facility — and sell the first cars. 

“We still don’t know the traffic flow here and how it will all work,” Lee said. “We want to maximize the space that we have.” 

Lee also needs to replenish inventory. Because of the pending move, Lee held off on purchasing more used cars to sell. He finally bought 15 cars on the eve of the move at an auction. 

The move means Lee needs to sell about 10% more cars per year to justify the new overhead expenses of more optimal real estate — fronting a road that has an average daily vehicle count of about 80,000 per day versus just the destination traffic heading to the old site. 

Lee said he already has driven to the old site on accident; the new commute would take some getting used to. 

“The goal is to have up to 300 cars here by quarter three,” Lee said. “And then 400 cars by the first of the year. 

“It’s kind of bittersweet. We were there since 2012. Moving is stressful. But the staff is excited.”