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Brand-new outlook

Jan Richardson is the new owner and operator of the Spokane Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo dealership. She is shown standing behind her product at the west Third dealership. (Christopher Anderson / The Spokesman-Review)
By Alison Boggs alisonb@spokesman.com(509) 459-5314
Jan Richardson is the new owner and operator of the Spokane Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo dealership. She is shown standing behind her product at the west Third dealership. (Christopher Anderson / The Spokesman-Review)

Jan Richardson has heard that Spokane isn’t a Jaguar type of town, but she doesn’t buy it.

The new owner of the Jaguar/Land Rover/Volvo dealership in downtown Spokane said she’s seen sales rise 30 to 40 percent per month since she took over the business at 1310 W. Third in March.

Originally from San Francisco, Richardson had retired from a 24-year career with AT&T and was looking for an entrepreneurial endeavor. She heard Ford Motor Co., which owns all three luxury car lines, was recruiting a different type of dealership owner. She signed on and spent six years training at other Ford dealerships before looking for a business of her own.

The opportunity presented itself in Spokane. Richardson purchased the assets of the former Jaguar and Land Rover dealership at the same location. She also bought the assets of Lithia Corp.’s Volvo dealership, run from the Camp Automotive site in North Spokane.

When her dealership opened, Richardson said, she became the first woman and the first African-American in the country to have a multi-brand franchise with those three nameplates.

“It’s a different type of business, one that’s typically male and one where there’s not much diversity,” said Richardson, 49. Her dealership, she said, “says a lot of things about the direction Spokane is moving in.”

Richardson poured $250,000 into a remodel of the dealership at Adams and Third. She converted the old shop on the north side of the block into a Volvo showroom, opening it up with big windows and adding funky multicolored rugs and acid-washed floors. She brought the service department inside to shield customers from the elements. And she’s ordered a 55-foot sign that will stand in front of the business, announcing all three brands.

Despite declining sales of Jaguar nationwide, which have prompted Ford to move to shut down a production facility in England, Richardson said her dealership is in a “growth mode.” She even sold an $80,000 Jaguar XKR convertible. She said about 30 cars move off the lot every month and she’s aiming to double within her first full year the sales done by the previous dealerships.

She said that will be possible because the luxury car lines have diversified their offerings to reach out to other income levels. Jaguar’s smallest cars, the X-Type, start around $30,000. Volvo’s S40 sports car starts around $25,000. “It’s still a very exclusive brand, but really, anyone who can buy a car can buy one of our cars,” Richardson said.

Richardson believes she will make the dealership succeed by making her home here and empowering her 22 employees to be creative. She’s requiring managers to become involved in a civic organization of their choosing. And she expects them to constantly brainstorm new ideas and share them with the rest of the staff.

“I don’t want anybody here on auto-pilot, doing only what I tell them to do,” she said. “We have to support the community for the community to support us.”