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January 29, 2016
Serving the mid valley & upper lackawanna valley
A New Presence
ON THE INSIDE
Dealership opens massive new facility in Dickson City
Around Town
The lastest happenings in our area Page 2
School News
What’s going on with your favorite student Page 8
Community Calendar
Plan some fun for the family this weekend Page 18
Bowling Scores
See who the top players were this week Page 27
Times-shamrock communiTy newspapers 149 Penn Avenue Scranton, PA 18503 Phone: (570) 348-9185 Fax: (570) 207-3448 E-mail: advantage@ timesshamrock.com
www.thevalleyadvantage.com
by Christopher Cornell ADVANTAGE EDITOR
For more than a year, radio listeners have been hearing advertisments for a prominent car dealership that ended with the tag line, “the best is yet to come.” They may have wondered what that meant. Motorists on Commerce Boulevard in Dickson City began to notice the commotion last spring: dust rising from an 8-acre construction site on a hill across from Staples and Best Buy. In the fall, the structure began to rise, and got bigger. And bigger. Anyone traveling that road now could be forgiven for thinking that somehow a battleship had made anchor on that lot. This week, longtime Dickson City business Gibbons Ford held the official ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the opening of its nearly 50,000-square-foot facility. “‘The best is yet to come’ was a reference to our new location,” said Casey Medeiros, director of marketing for the dealership, saying the new facility will have “a great deal more space, a much more customer-friendly facility and additional employees to better serve our customers.” The location, a $9 million investment, will have 29 service bays, five heavy duty truck bays, four dedicated “quick lane” service bays, master certified diesel technicians, 26 additional employees, a climate-controlled indoor service drive, a climate-controlled indoor newcar delivery area, a children’s play area and an upgraded customer waiting area with a window looking directly into the repair bays. The company has moved out of the old facility on Main Avenue and the site is up for sale. But there was a conscious decision to remain in Dickson City. “We chose to stay in Dickson City for a few reasons,” Medeiros said. “First and foremost, Dickson City officials have been incredible to work with. Also Dickson City has always been our home and we are happy and excited to be part of its expanding economy.” Medeiros said the building “will let us keep a much larger inventory of new and pre-owned
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From left: Kurtis Medeiros, Casey Medeiros, John Grow, Steve Randal, Kate Grow, Darryl Jayne and Dickson City Mayor Stanley Prushinski.
vehicles, giving our customers a wider selection to choose from.” She also noted the company’s “quick lane” service, which aims to have customers’ quick services, such as oil changes, tire rotations, new tires and wiper blades completed within 30 minutes. “New construction is always challenging,” she said. “You have the typical setbacks that every project has, but our main challenge was
the weather,” noting that the winter of 2014’15 winter set the construcution schedule back 11 weeks. “The main thing we want people to know about our new facility is the we are still doing business the way Marty Gibbons did,” she said. “The only thing that has changed is our location. We are continually striving to be better and improve our customer service. Without the customers we wouldn’t exist.”