Tim White, president of the family company that owns the White Allen auto dealerships in Dayton, plans to invest more than $10 million in Montgomery County in the next two years.

The core of his plan involves building a new Honda dealership on North Main Street that White believes could serve as gateway to downtown Dayton.

The investment will help position White Family Companies Inc. – which owns auto dealerships in Ohio, South Dakota and Wyoming – for the future, particularly in Dayton, White said.

“We have decided to make a gigantous commitment to downtown Dayton, Ohio,” White said in a recent interview with the Dayton Daily News.

His plan includes projects underway or soon to begin. White said his plans include:

• Building a new Honda store on the east side of North Main, just north of the existing Honda dealership, which will be torn down. That represents an approximate $3.5 million investment, White said.
• Tearing down the existing body shop on North Main near the company’s Honda and Chevrolet stores, and building another body shop, a $3 million investment.
• Revamping the company’s existing Chevrolet store for about $900,000.
• Building a new home for used vehicle sales, an investment of about $300,000 to $500,000.
• Giving about $750,000 of property on the corner of Great Miami Boulevard and Main Street to the city of Dayton.
• The business also wants to purchase the former Russ’s Market property. White’s plans for that site aren’t clear yet, but he said that purchase could reach $250,000 for both purchase and building demolition.
• The company also has plans for two pieces of property in the area of Emmet Street and Riverside Drive that represents a planned investment of $200,000.
• Also, the company bought property on the corner of Linwood and McPherson streets that will be used to expand parking, an investment of about $40,000.

In addition, White also plans to spend about $350,000 remodeling the company’s Porsche store and about $600,000 remodeling the company’s Audi store on North Springboro Pike, where it has a dealership for European autos.

Most of the work will be done over the next two years, White said. He hopes to start work on the new Honda store May 1. He would like to see Dayton Plan Board approval in mid-February.

White believes the time is right. He said in recent discussions, family members considered selling the company’s Dayton operations or expanding them. “We chose to expand,” he said.

He expects to have about 800 employees companywide and more than $650 million in auto sales in 2013.

“I think if you’re going to do it, you have to do it right,” he said.

The family has sold cars in downtown Dayton since 1935. White has resisted what he says are entreaties by Honda to move his Honda store out of downtown to a location off Interstate 70 northwest of Dayton. He thinks his plans position the company for the future and will benefit Dayton, particularly with reconfigured I-75 on- and off-ramps downtown.

One rebuilt interchange with I-75 is just north of his dealerships on Main Street.

“The city is doing what they can to clean up from Great Miami Boulevard south to the freeway, and then since I own most of the property from the freeway to here (400 block of North Main), I think it’s my responsibility to do what I can to make this as nice an entryway as possible to downtown,” White said.

A Dayton Planning Department employee said Wednesday the plan will be on the Feb. 19 Plan Board meeting agenda.

“This is quite incredible,” Sandy Gudorf, president of Downtown Dayton Partnership, said. “The White family have always been community partners.”

The company’s plan goes beyond improvements to being a “substantial investment” that can serve as a renewed “gateway into downtown,” she said.

Tim Doran, executive director of the Ohio Auto Dealers Association, said “a lot” of dealers are doing renovations and new construction.

“But there aren’t too many (dealers) doing a complete ground-up in a downtown market,” he added. “And I think that expresses their commitment to downtown.”

Ron Lietzke, a spokesman for Honda in Ohio, said the new White Allen Honda dealership home will “probably be very much in line with what Honda is doing in working with dealers.”

Honda has generally worked with dealers to “upgrade and change the emphasis of the dealerships” to strengthen customer service and improve the environment customers experience at the stores.

Lietzke could not immediately say if it was unusual today for downtown dealerships to make this kind of investment.