Opportunity Missed by the City of Glendale, AZ
By Al Tracy
About 2 months ago, our President Larry Barker and VP Steve Wingenfeld discovered that the Honda building on Grand Ave. and N 57th Dr. was in fact the original Kaiser Dealership store in Glendale from 1953-57. All Kaiser stores nationwide were built with the same Art Deco look, with floor to ceiling glass showroom.
Larry and Steve went to the City of Glendale and found out that the building had just been purchased by the city for $1.2 million and was slated for demolition. They proposed converting the building into a non profit classic car museum and had lined up dozens of owners interested in showing and storing their vehicles in the building and paying a fee to do so. They also proposed to the city to build a meeting room in the building that would be available to rent to groups, with the bonus feature of museum tours.
The building was located at 57th Dr. and Grand Ave. (US 60) and would make for an excellent entrance to old town city of Glendale from Grand. This museum would have brought in revenue to the city and would have been an excellent place to host car shows in conjunction with Glendale’s Downtown events. Larry and Steve were told by city staff that the building demo would be put on hold while the city reviewed the proposal. Before the proposal could be presented to the city council, the building was quickly demolished and is now a dirt lot, another eyesore for Glendale. It is too bad the city of Glendale could not take a couple of days to try and preserve a vital piece of history to the car community. The City lost out on a great source of revenue and pride for the people that live here. Instead, we just paid $1.2 million for another dirt lot. As the old song goes “paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Another building in another city is now being looked at and that city is more receptive to the idea.