Rapid Growth Forces Three-Year-Old Auto Auction To Expand, Relocate

At its first weekly sale three years ago, Dealers Auto Auction of Spokane sold just 16 cars.

Last year, the Thursday auction rang up average sales of 450 cars and trucks a week - for an annual total of more than 20,000.

Meantime, full- and part-time employment has ballooned from five back then to 80 today.

And this year, the regional wholesaler of used vehicles to registered dealers is picking up the pace.

President Robert W. McConkey Jr. announced that the auto auction is trading in its ground lease on 12 acres west of Spokane for a site three times as large.

“We have a $3.5-million building already going up there at 2215 South Hayford Road,” said McConkey, “and we will move in this May.”

At its present level of operations, the auction typically offers for sale on consignment between 800 to 1,000 vehicles.

The new facility will accommodate 1,500 vehicles, and has ample space for expansion. The Spokane auction sells on consignment vehicles repossessed or traded in by banks, finance companies, car rental agencies, and company fleet operators throughout the nation. The yard serves buyers in dealerships throughout the Northwest. The transactions largely determine the price of used vehicles in this region.

“We’re kind of like the stock market for the used car industry,” observes McConkey.

The weather continues to conspire against many area retailers of cold weather apparel, winter recreational gear and snow removal equipment.

Finally, after months of open winter weather that stalled sales, the area got dumped on bigtime in January, and forecasters warn more heavy snows may be on the way.

But for some, the cold and snow come too late, or nearly so. A number of merchants with whom I talked hereabouts report they had already returned the bulk of their winter-weather stocks to dealers and factories for redistribution to other regions visited by record bad weather early in the season.

So, now that ice and snow have finally arrived here - months late - inventories are scarce.

At the Ash & Rowan Ace Hardware, which stocks Snapper and Toro snow-handling equipment, sales veteran Cindy Smith said, “After missing the first half of the season, we packed up a lot of stuff and shipped it back to New York where people really needed it. So now our supplies are tight, and we won’t be getting any more when this runs out.”

At REI, assistant manager Vickie Chambers said, “We and a lot of other folks have had a slow season. It’s been kind of hard for people to get excited about buying skis while they’re still riding bicycles in January.

“Now, with the snow coming this late, people tend to hold off, because what’s in the stores is basically last year’s goods.”

So, she said, REI is throwing a big sale through this weekend.

But for Lazy Acorn Ranch, which sells hayrides with all the trimmings for affluent nostalgia buffs, an open winter all through the holidays was a big boon to business. “It’s been fantastic,” rejoiced rancher Irv Stritzke.

Doctors, lawyers, bankers and other business groups flock to his big barn 22 miles north of Spokane on the Newport Highway for office outings and parties. There they can rollick around in the hay, hire their own live bands, cater banquets, show videos, or what have you.

The open winter was ideal for wagon rides. Now with the recent heavy snows, Stritzke has broken out bobsleds, and is ready for what comes.

“We had 44 groups in December,” he reports. “So far, January has been very busy, and already we have 10 or 12 bookings in February.”

Harvard Business School’s new dean is a product of the Spokane educational system.

Dean Kim B. Clark attended Sacajawea Junior High and earned a diploma from Ferris Senior High - where he took all the hard courses like Latin, physics, advanced math, etc. - with a 3.7 grade point average. School records show that besides Harvard, the young Clark had his academic transcript sent to Yale, Brown, and Washington universities.

Spokane physician John Sonneland, a Harvard alum, takes credit for helping the new dean of business get accepted as a Harvard frosh in 1967. Clark has been there ever since, earning all of his degrees at Harvard, up through and including a Ph.D in economics.

The son of Merlin and Helen Clark, who now reside in St. George, Utah, is known in academic circles as a “dyed-in-the wool Harvard man.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.