Mazergroup planning new dealership
November 25, 2014, 3:04 am
Kevin Weedmark
Mazergroup is planning a new expanded New Holland equipment dealership for Moosomin.
The new dealership will be built to the east and south of the current dealership, and will face the north service road of the Trans-Canada Highway, just east of Highway 8.
The new, approximately 20,000 square foot dealership building will be more than twice the size of the current 9,000 square foot building, and the 15 acre site is more than three times the size of the current site, which faces Highway 8.
“We have been in Moosomin for about 10 years, and our business is growing nicely every year,” Mazergroup President and CEO Bob Mazer said in an interview last week.
“We’re on four and a half acres of property, and with our big equipment it’s getting difficult to manage. We had a choice of expanding to the north and expanding our facilities, or building new.
“We looked at it and asked ‘what is the marketplace like for a building like ours,’ and we found there is a lot of interest. We have several extremely interested parties in our property.
“Because of that, we thought ‘let’s work from scratch’ and we were able to work with Mr. Tocker to buy a property on the highway. It’s always nice to have that location on the highway, to have that extra exposure.
“We will start dirt work shortly. We’ve got permission from the prior owner to go ahead and start work.
“With the move, we will be in the Town of Moosomin. We will have town water and in the not-too-distant future we will have town sewer.”
With the additional space, Mazer says his company may be able to offer additional products in Moosomin.
“We are looking at an additional product offering, but I can’t disclose it quite yet,” he said.
“We will be building a significantly larger building. We like the Moosomin area and we believe we can continue to grow. We have stiff competition in Moosomin from the other two majors—John Deere and Case IH—but it’s a benefit having all the dealerships together in one town.
“Ask any car dealer or implement dealer—good competition is where you want to be. It draws attention to the town as an implement centre.
“We are certainly not afraid of the competition. We want to be in centres where the competition is doing very well—that tells us it’s a strong market.”
He said Moosomin has been a very strong market for Mazergroup over the last decade.
“In actual fact the equipment sales out of Moosomin and area are about the same as Brandon,” he said. “We have about the same amount of iron in dollars sold out of Moosomin as Brandon.
“We serve a large area out of Moosomin—our competition to the west is in Regina, and up at Yorkton. Fifteen years ago Moosomin was not a growing community, but look at what has happened in the last 10 years. It’s been wonderful to see. Good for Moosomin and area—it has re-established itself as a good, solid centre.”
Moosomin is one of a group of dealerships Mazergroup has in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
“We have 13 stores right now,” Mazer said. “We are not driven by expansion because we are privately owned. We are owned by the Mazer family and about 20 other investors, and almost all of them are working in our stores as managers or are part of the executive team. Our motivation is to run a good business, not to grow our business for shareholders. We will continue to do that.
“I started here in Brandon with one store, and if I ever feel we are losing that personal touch and feel with our customers, then we will stop growing. We have to maintain that approach to our customer base.”
Site preparation work will begin soon, and Mazer hopes to see the dealership move to the new building by the end of next year.
“We haven’t even designed the building yet, but the dirt work will start right away, we will get a site plan and drainage plan drawn up, and we hope to get some of the dirt work done within the next 30 days as long as the weather co-operates. If we get some done this year that would be great—it gives us a bit of a boost in the spring.
“A target would be to move sometime in the latter part of 2015.”
Mazer said the 15-acre parcel should be a perfect size for the dealership, and he is very happy with the location facing the Trans-Canada Highway.
“It’s a nice piece of property right on the highway,” he said. “I was delighted to come to an agreement with Mr. Tocker.”
With the larger building, Mazergroup will be able to add to its staff in Moosomin.
“We plan to add to the staff,” Mazer said. “Staffing is one of our challenges in Moosomin because we’re competing with oil and the mines, but we want to be at the high end of our industry in terms of our offering to our people, so we can be competitive.
“We are limited to the size of our building at the moment, but we would want to expand our staffing levels in the service area. If you expand in service, you would probably expand in parts, and sales may follow.”
Mazer said he’s looking forward to getting the project off the ground.
