HASSO HERING

I had not seen the new Albany Hyundai dealership until a bike ride east of I-5 took me there.

While I wasn’t paying attention, Albany gained two big automobile businesses over the last year. A bike ride in Saturday’s sunshine took me past both of them.

These new sales and service operations are Albany Hyundai at 1620 Fescue St., east of Interstate 5 and across Fescue from Home Depot, and Subaru of Albany at 520 Airport Road, at the remodeled former Hertz car lot.

Both are branches of the automotive group owned by Steve Jackson, of Rockwall, Texas. The business has other dealerships in Albany, Corvallis and elsewhere.

The Jackson group may have more plans for Albany. It bought a 3.2-acre property at 1250 Goldfish Farm Road for  $2,350,000 in September 2023.

The new Hyundai and Subaru locations in Albany have EV charging stations, which is only natural since they offer electric models along with conventional ones.

Over the past couple of years, I have occasionally reported on the planning and then the construction of these businesses. Now that they’ve been open for a while, I thought it was about time to take a look.

From what I can see at these and other Albany car lots, including Honda, Ford, Toyota and Dodge, it’s apparent that the auto industry has come out of the Covid period of supply shortages that were blamed on a lack of enough computer chips.

All the lots I’ve looked at lately seem to display a good number of vehicles fresh from the factories. It’s fun again to wander around the lots and admire new cars and trucks. (hh)

The Albany Hyundai dealership on Fescue Street has an imposing two-story glass front.

The EV charging station at the new Albany Subaru dealership on Airport Road.

New Subarus outside the store, the remodeled former Hertz car lot on Airport Road.