Lake Barrington Motorsports receives permission to sell high-end used cars
Lake Barrington Motorsports has gained village board approval to expand its business to sell high-end used cars.
Trustees called a special meeting for Monday that resulted in approval of a special-use permit the car business needed for the sales operation at 28611 Hillside Drive. The board acted four days after Lake Barrington Motorsports' request received a thumbs-up from the advisory plan commission.
With the expedited approval in hand, Village Administrator Karen Daulton Lange said, Lake Barrington Motorsports can begin forming its sales operation sooner. She said the business would have had to wait another two weeks for a regular village board meeting if the special session had not been called.
"To me, it's exceptional customer service for municipalities to be providing their businesses," Lange said after Monday's meeting.
Open since early December, Lake Barrington Motorsports has specialized in the repairs and maintenance of luxury imports such as BMW, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti and Audi. Classic car modernization also has been part of the business.
Lake Barrington Motorsports Director of Business Development Kathleen Scott said it's hoped the used-car sales begin by early spring.
"We're looking at cars in the price range of $20,000 to $30,000," Scott said. "Luxury imports, European imports, maybe a classic car here or there."
Under a conservative projection, Lake Barrington's annual local share of sales tax from the new used-car business could be $30,000. That's based on a 1 percent village share of $3 million in sales, officials said.
Fidelity Motor Group sold used luxury cars for about three years at Northwest Highway and Pepper Road until closing in 2014. Fidelity had moved from Palatine to Lake Barrington and started with about 150 high-end used cars.
"Fidelity Motor Group really did a wonderful job of it for several years," Scott said, "but the market did change. It depends on what segment you're looking at. For $20,000 to $30,000, that seems to be the range where people still want to be able to buy a BMW, but they're not going to spend 80 grand, So, we're hoping we find that niche market and fulfill it."
A roughly 3,700-square-foot indoor sales area will be created in the 11,555-square-foot Lake Barrington Motorsports building.