Cda Auto Row Expanding With Addition Of Two Addis Dealerships

The new Auto Row is going to grow.

About 12 acres of knapweed along Highway 95 in north Coeur d’Alene will become buildings, blacktop and buggies (gas, that is) in the next eight months.

Combining Coeur d’Alene’s Tom Addis Dodge and Lake City Ford Lincoln Mercury businesses into the Tom Addis Autoplex, the property will become two mirror-image auto sales and service facilities. The dealerships will move from their present locations on Fourth Street.

The complex will extend from the Barton Oldsmobile dealership on the north to a parcel adjacent to Super 1 Foods on the south.

The buildings will each be 36,000 square feet containing showrooms, offices and shop facilities. Construction, which began last week and should be complete in June, will be of tilt-up concrete with glass fronts.

“These buildings will blend into the Northwest atmosphere like professional buildings,” said owner Tom Addis. “They will be totally landscaped.”

Access will be from Government Way on an extension of Clayton Avenue that will bisect the dealerships and from Dalton Avenue on a new street that will begin behind Barton Olds. Each lot will hold about 325 new and used cars.

Originally from Newport Beach, Calif., Addis found the Inland Northwest 20 years ago and bought the Ford dealership in Chewelah, Wash. He came to Coeur d’Alene in a big way, buying the Ford and Dodge dealerships about three months apart. (Of the sellers, Ford man Larry Larson now has a Nissan dealership in Missoula and Dodge man Jerry Anderson has an auto body business in Coeur d’Alene.)

“We worked our way over here,” Addis said.

And work Addis must, and in the process he does something right. In 10 years, his work force has grown from 40 to about 110 employees.

“We’re lucky enough to be in a loyal, supportive community,” Addis said. “We also are the annual recipient of high customer satisfaction ratings from our manufacturers.”

Anderson retains ownership of his Dodge property in Coeur d’Alene. Addis said the future of the present Ford facility is uncertain.

“It could become another car franchise or high-end used car location,” he said. “We’ve had some people (potential buyers or leasers) interested, and another thought is that it could become a new post office facility.”

Even when the new dealerships are in place, the construction probably won’t be over. Addis has another five acres to develop - possibly into another dealership, a body shop and a tire store.

While some developers lament city building restrictions, Addis has nothing but praise for the city departments and his builders, Contractors Northwest and J.U.B. Engineers.

The owners of Funtastics have found a new way to keep children off the streets.

Gymnastics and rotational sports instruction and activities are the emphases of Funtastics, a new business at 7352 Government Way (two blocks north of Silver Lake Mall and across from Memorial Cemetery).

Owners Barbara Pierce and Lisa Turrell focus on fitness, sports fundamentals and social development in their weekly eight-session programs. The rotating sports include soccer, tennis, volleyball, track, baseball, basketball and football. Classes are weekdays, evenings and Saturdays.

Both women are graduates of Coeur d’Alene High School. Pierce earned a master’s degree in sports psychology from the University of Idaho, and Turrell graduated from the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and specializes in developmental gymnastics.

The business opened Sept. 5 in a new, 1,440-square-foot building.

Group cruises on Lake Pend Oreille and the Pend Oreille River are offered by Capt. Curtis Pearson aboard his new 40-foot cruiser Shawnodese. Options include two-hour, half and full-day cruises for bookings up to 25 people. Meals may be arranged.

Pearson, who built Sandpoint’s Hydra Restaurant when he came from New York City in 1975, built the boat with a turn-of-the-century theme (with modern conveniences). The aluminum hull is from a ferry that served the Channel Islands in California.

An “open boat” is being celebrated until 6 p.m. today at Harbor Marina Dock C in Garfield Bay. The Shawnodese, an Indian word meaning “spirit-keeper of the south,” is chartered through Tamarack Knoll Enterprises of Sandpoint.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Nils Rosdahl The Spokesman-Review