Porsche Fort Myers invested $30 million in construction costs on a new south Fort Myers dealership that is about to be unveiled.
Mitchell Sherwood, a part-owner and general manager of the dealership at 10064 Daniels Interstate Court, said just moving everything about 200 yards to the south near the southeast corner of Daniels Parkway and Interstate 75 will give the brand a big boost.
“Visibility is going to be big,” Sherwood said. “Because you can’t see our current store from I-75. And this store has maximum visibility.”
The new store, slated to open May 1, also has maximum space when compared to the old one. The square footage is going up from 17,000 square feet to 80,000 square feet. EnviroStruct managed the construction.
About 50 Porsche employees who had been crammed into the original location soon will have room to spread out. This includes those in the service department, who are getting 25 service bays instead of seven.
But selling both the cars and the brand will get easier, Sherwood said, not just because of having more space but because of how Porsche Fort Myers will use it. Instead of looking like a “store,” he said it would be more like a “destination,” similar to how the adjacent Rockstar Harley Davidson markets itself.
The new Porsche store will be one of the first 10 across the country with the new theme, Sherwood said.
“That’s actually the name of this new generation of design for Porsche,” Sherwood said. “It’s called Destination Porsche.
“We’ve got a more modular layout here in the showroom that will allow them to experience, learn more about Porsche, fall in love with the brand and then be able to experience it in different ways. We’re heavily invested in pre-owned vehicles, too. We feel like we want everybody to come here and to experience Porsche and fall in love with the brand. Whether they’re a customer today or maybe a customer in the future, we want them to come in here today and see what Porsche is all about.”
New Porsche cars start in the high $60,000 range, and the more exotic versions cost as much as $300,000.
“They’ll do another super car eventually, and that car will probably be well over $1 million,” Sherwood said. “Once again, Porsche has a widespread and very diverse model offering.
“Porsches got a great history, and they’ve got a great future,” Sherwood said. “They’ve got electric cars, which is a big part of their future. They’ve got hybrids. And then they’re still heavily invested in gas-powered cars. They believe the future is really about diversity. They want to make sure they’ve got cars offered in all of those different ranges. So, they’ve got an amazing array of sports cars coming. Some of them are of the highest-performance that you’ve ever seen.”
