Junge Automotive moving to Hiawatha

Hiawatha will be getting another new vehicle dealership in July when Junge Automotive moves its Cedar Rapids Lincoln, Mazda and Volvo dealership to a building being vacated by Cedar Rapids Toyota.

Jason Junge, co-owner and CEO of Junge Automotive Group, said the dealership expects to move July 1 from its 2.75-acre location at Collins Road and Council Street NE to the 8-acre Cedar Rapids Toyota site at 1200 Boyson Road in Hiawatha.

'We're going to have significantly more outdoor display area with more selection and inventory,” Junge said. 'We've been at this location since 1995.”

Junge said building and land at 1510 Collins Road NE is under contract for sale to an undisclosed buyer.

Chris Langhurst, general manager of Cedar Rapids Toyota, said the dealership expects to move in June to the former Volkswagen/Lithia building east of its current location on Boyson Road. A $5 million expansion and remodeling project will virtually double the size of the building to 50,000 square feet.

'The majority of the expansion will be in the service area, where we have been short for some time,” Scott Ryan, owner and president of Cedar Rapids Toyota said in May 2015 when the move was announced. 'We also plan to add an automatic car wash to wash our customer's cars after they have been serviced.”

Ryan said the expansion and move will increase employment from 57 full-time and 15 part-time employees to 65 full-time and 18 part-time associates when the dealership moves into the remodeled building. Within 18 months, he expects that to grow to 75 full-time and 25 part-time employees.

Cedar Rapids Toyota moved into its existing 26,000-square-foot building in December 2003 when it relocated from an 11,000-square-foot building at Blairs Ferry Road and Seventh Avenue in Marion. The dealership had outgrown that location after 20 years in business.

Cedar Rapids Toyota services vehicles leased by employees of Toyota Financial Services (TFS) in northeast Cedar Rapids. It also handles the sale of off-lease vehicles for TFS.