EchoPark Automotive is driving ahead with plans for a used-car dealership along Atlantic Boulevard next to Audi Jacksonville and two lots east of CarMax.
The St. Johns River Water Management District is reviewing an application for the proposed dealership on 8.52 acres owned by Atlantic North LLC, part of Sleiman Enterprises. Baker Design Build is the agent and civil engineer.
EchoPark is a subsidiary of Sonic Automotive Inc. of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Plans surfaced for EchoPark in November 2017 in applications for mobility fee calculation and concurrency reservation certificates.
Those applications showed that Sonic Development LLC wants to buy property from Sleiman Enterprises to build the dealership, which will be about 24,000 square feet and feature 634 parking spaces. It also will build a car wash for its vehicles.
Sleiman is negotiating to sell the EchoPark site to Sonic Development, the mobility application shows. The Atlantic North development is at northwest Atlantic and Kernan boulevards.
The EchoPark.com site shows four locations in Colorado, four in Texas and one in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sonic Automotive, a publicly traded company, announced in December that it opened its eighth EchoPark Automotive specialty pre-owned vehicle store in Houston.
Sonic Automotive reports that the EchoPark business model sells nearly new vehicles at 20 to 40 percent below new car value.
In August, the Automotive News publication reported that Jeff Dyke, Sonic executive vice president of operations, said there are plans for an EchoPark in San Antonio in the first three months of 2019 and another in an undisclosed location.
He said that Sonic will ramp up store expansion in 2020. Automotive News said Sonic has long had big aspirations for EchoPark.
The industry news site reports that when Sonic announced the brand in August 2014, executives talked of having stores in 50 markets with as many as 10 per area.
CEO Scott Smith has said he foresees EchoPark one day being bigger than the company's franchised business.
Sonic Automotive operates among two segments — the franchised dealerships and the EchoPark pre-owned segment.
EchoPark Automotive says on its website that it has hundreds of 1- to 4-year-old low-mileage vehicles with all under their original factory warranties and no accidents as verified by Carfax. They are priced up to 40 percent below the cost of buying new, it says.
Sonic Automotive said an initiative introduced in late 2013 includes new processes and proprietary technologies designed to allow customers to complete a vehicle sales transaction in less than an hour.
EchoPark might be near CarMax geographically in Jacksonville, but in size, CarMax is the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, operating almost 200 stores in 41 states.
Richmond, Virginia-based CarMax has two Jacksonville stores, at 11335 Atlantic Blvd. and at 7438 Blanding Blvd.
EchoPark would join an Atlantic Boulevard corridor of at least 20 dealerships from Regency Square Mall to Kernan Boulevard.