Syracuse, N.Y. -- East Syracuse Chevrolet, one of Central New York’s oldest and largest auto dealerships, has been sold to the biggest automotive group in New York.
West Herr Automotive Group, which is based in Orchard Park near Buffalo, completed the purchase Thursday from Gino Barbuto, who had owned the dealership for the past 10 years.
The dealership’s name will not change but, starting Monday, will include the tag “a member of the West Herr Automotive Group.” Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.
It is West Herr’s 32nd dealership and fourth Chevrolet franchise. Twenty-three of its dealerships are in the Buffalo area and eight are in the Rochester area.
East Syracuse Chevrolet is the auto group’s first dealership in the Syracuse market.
The Chevy franchise started on West Manlius Street in the village of East Syracuse in 1929. It moved to a new and much larger location on Chevy Drive, off Bridge Street, on March 1, 1987.
Barbuto, 55, started at the dealership as a service adviser in 1986. He moved his way up to service manager in 1992, new car sales manager in 1998, general manager in 2009 and operating partner in 2010. He bought the dealership in 2011 from Sidney Greenberg, who had owned it since 1982.
“I worked my way up and around the building,” Barbuto said Thursday after closing on the sale. “I told everyone I just couldn’t hang on to a job so they kept moving me.”
He said he decided to sell the dealership because it has become increasingly hard to own a single franchise. Unlike an owner of a single dealership, auto groups can spread their administrative costs over multiple locations and take advantage of the greater buying power that size gives them on such things as health insurance for employees, he said.
“Just like every other industry in the country, as a single-point store, it’s getting harder and harder, you know, with expense control and everything, it just gets tougher every day,” said Barbuto. “So I felt that, for the future of the dealership, but more importantly for the future of all my employees, that it was a good time to join a group.”
All 87 employees at the dealership have been offered jobs with West Herr, he said.
West Herr said it plans to add some new employees, bringing the dealership’s workforce up to 95, and projects it will sell a total of 3,000 new and used vehicles per year.
“In the future, we plan to hopefully grow our footprint by acquiring additional stores in the Syracuse market,” said West Herr President and CEO Scott Bieler. “We are proud to carry on the quality sales and service experience that Gino Barbuto and his team provided to the community for many years, and will use what they have built as a foundation for future growth.”
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