Vt. auto dealers open shop in Pittsfield

By Tony DoBrowolski

PITTSFIELD — Two men with extensive experience in motor vehicle sales in the Berkshires are returning to the area from Vermont to open a used car dealership in Pittsfield.

Scott O’Connell and Mike Coggins, who both spent more than 20 years working for Haddad Auto Group, opened Coggins of the Berkshires at 876 East St. on March 1. The shop will include a service facility and is associated with Coggins Auto, which operates Ford, Honda and Toyota dealerships in Bennington, Vt.

The Licensing Board approved an annual Class II auto dealer’s license for the group at its Jan. 30 meeting.

Coggins and O’Connell, who will serve as the new dealership’s general manager, are business partners. The two men decided to re-enter the Berkshire mar- ketplace based on the contacts they have in the Berkshires.

“We have 20 years of customers and friends here,” said O’Connell, who has been working in Vermont for just over a year. Coggins has been in Vermont for two years.

The new dealership is entering a market that has plenty of competition, including four new car dealerships that are located less than a mile from their location on East Street. But O’Connell said they have seen a number of Berkshire-based customers in Bennington, which is less than 40 miles from Pittsfield, and believe there’s enough room in the Berkshires for everyone.

“People are driving over an hour to buy the cars in Vermont,” O’Connell said. “We want to give them service and sales locally. That’s our goal.

“The customers were asking for ser- vice,” he said. “It’s hard when you buy a car and then you have to drive an hour for an oil change.”

O’Connell said there’s a niche for another auto dealership in the Berkshires.

“The people of Berkshire County have been asking for a higher level of service,” he said. “And there’s a reason why they re driving an hour to buy a car now. It’s more than price. It’s service.

“They want to be treated a certain way,” he said. “They know how they’re going to be treated when they go to our dealerships. They’ve been loyal for over 20 years and they continue to be. Our leads go down all the way to New Marlborough. This is us trying to say thank you.”

The new dealership will be located on the site of East Street Auto Service, which is on the corner of East and Ly- developing building Site 9, the largest of the 52-acre business park’s nine building lots, since the General Electric Co. transferred ownership of the site in 2012 to the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority, a quasi-public agency charged with the business park’s development. man streets, across East Street from Berkshire Mazda. Berkshire Mazda is currently exploring plans to move to Lenox.

Under a consent decree that required GE to clean up PCB contamination in Pittsfield, the company was required to environmentally remediate each parcel before turning it over to PEDA. Site 9 was the last parcel to be transferred.

Two proposals to turn the parcel into a retail complex, including one involving the construction of a Walmart Supercenter, have fallen through over the last 11 years. Development has been hampered by the jumble of building foundations left on the site.

While it was originally thought that leaving the foundations in place would make it easier to build on, that hasn’t been the case. In the past, city officials have referred to the concrete jumble as a moonscape.

Coakley said prospective developers “would moonwalk right out of there” when he would bring them to the site.

The city originally received $40.6 million in ARPA funding from the federal government, but had only $8.9 million left as of December. Tyer said in mid-February that the city probably has a little bit of ARPA funding left following this investment and its housing improvement initiatives, but declined to say how much.

She deferred comment on the exact amount pending a presentation that the city planned to make on its ARPA funding when the City Council met on Feb. 28.

“It’s a continually moving number,” she said.

According to O’Connell, Coggins of the Berkshires will be taking over East Street Auto Service’s customer base. Phil Viscuso, who has owned East Street Auto Service for many years, will be staying on as an employee. Coggins, which is taking over East Street Auto Service’s former auto dealer’s license, is expected to officially acquire the property on March 1.

“I can’t say enough about that gentleman,” O’Connell said, referring to Viscuso. “He’s been a one-man operation for a long time. He turns the wrench, answers the phone, sells the car ... everything.”

The dealership expects to have six to seven employees to start, O’Connell said.

“I have a feeling that it’s going to be bigger than we think it is,” he said. “We might add another two.”