Blaise Alexander Family Dealerships has bought the landmark Rider Auto dealership on West College Avenue, company CEO and President Blaise Alexander confirmed Wednesday.
Alexander, whose Muncy-based group acquired the former Clark Motor Co. on East College Avenue several years ago, will reopen the Rider showroom Tuesday as Blaise Alexander Hyundai-Mazda, he said.
He said the service shop at the dealership, 1703 W. College Ave., is already doing business under the Blaise Alexander banner.
‘We’re going to be looking for (more employees) as we start to grow,’ Alexander said. ‘We’re going to bring that place back to life.’
Rider Auto filed for bankruptcy protection in late 2008 and indicated then that it planned to reorganize.
But Rider, once among the largest dealerships in the State College area, remained in bankruptcy for months. Late last year, it sold its General Motors franchises — Buick, Cadillac and GMC — to Sutliff Motors on North Atherton Street.
That left Rider with its Mazda and Hyundai franchises, along with its service shop and its West College Avenue real estate.
Chuck Rider, the Rider Auto owner and well-known community philanthropist, could not be reached for immediate comment on Wednesday.
But Alexander said he has ‘paid all the monies that were supposed to be paid to the bankruptcy court’ and that, to his knowledge, the bankruptcy is ‘put to bed.’
He said he was drawn to buy the Rider business for several reasons. For one, Alexander said, the operation had ‘been on the market for so long, it seemed like it was just getting to a point where I didn’t think Chuck was getting a fair shake.’
Alexander called Rider ‘a wonderful man.’ Rider is now completely retired from the business, he said.
Another factor that drew Alexander’s interest, he said, is the ‘tremendous success’ that Blaise Alexander Chrysler Jeep Dodge has seen at 1080 E. College Ave.
With Alexander dealerships on both sides of State College, ‘it’s a whole lot easier to become a household name. And that’s what we’re looking to do,’ Alexander said.
He worked nearly 10 years in the State College area during the 1970s, when he was the used-car manager at Stocker Chevrolet.
Since then, and for the past 30 years, Alexander has built his own network of dealerships. The Hyundai-Mazda operation in State College will be his company’s 10th dealership. The company employs a total of 625 people in eight counties.
The Hyundai-Mazda dealership has about 10 workers now, and most remaining employees from the Rider group have stayed on board, Alexander said. In time, he said, he hopes to have 40 workers on West College Avenue as the business regains momentum.
Alexander also has established an apartment in State College so that he can spend more time in the area, he said. Likewise, he said his son, company COO Adam Alexander, will visit the Hyundai-Mazda dealership often.
‘We have total communication with our employees and our customers,’ Blaise Alexander said. ‘We want people to know they can reach anyone in our organization at any time. … When we tell you it’s family, it’s a family operation. It’s a family deal. We put our name right out there; we want you to know who we are, what we do.’
To that end, he said, he personally returns all phone messages left for him.
Already, the new Alexander dealership has named several key employees. John Broome, formerly of Selinsgrove, will be general manager; Dwight and Gail Whistler, formerly of the Mount Joy area, will lead the service department; and Lauren Smith, formerly of Shamokin, will be the office manager and bookkeeper.
