Fiat is opening up shop at 1015 Locust
After we scored a scoop with the article: Fiat Coming To Downtown St. Louis on January 6, 2012, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took notice and reporter Tim Bryant started making some phone calls. He spoke with John Warren, a Richard Ellis leasing agent – the same person I spoke with earlier that day.
Warren confirmed to me that a Fiat “dealership” ( that’s what he called it) would go into this space but that nothing was final yet.
The Post-Dispatch ran a piece later that day under the headline: Fiat might–sort of–set up downtown
Now, I never implied in my article (at least I don’t think I did) that this would be a full-service dealership, including maintenance facilities, because I understand that the space at 1015 Locust would not be suited for that. Let alone the environmental issues that would have to be negated. I did call it a “dealership”, went as far as to call it a Fiat Studio, which is Fiat speak for “dealership”.
Fellow downtown blogger (and a friend of mine) Steve Patterson now is “on the attack” on his blog UrbanReviewSTL with a post titled: “If it Sounds to Good to be True”. Post-Dispatch writer Tim Logan (one of my favorite P-D writers, as is Tim Bryant) responded to Steve’s tweet about this article with: “Tim Bryant to the rescue.”
I don’t understand this typical negative St. Louis attitude: Instead of appreciating that soon we will be able to shop for a Fiat 500 in downtown St. Louis, they’re basically saying: “Well, it’s not a real Fiat dealership.”
But however you twist and turn it, the space will be used to display and sell Fiat 500′s and will be operated by a “real” Fiat dealership. I found it such a significant and positive development for downtown St. Louis, I felt that although the details were still unclear I had enough information to post the article. I also added a disclaimer by stating prominently (in the second sentence of the post): ”Note: Nothing is final yet.”
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the end result will look like, but if everything works out (and it seems it will) we will soon have a great location downtown to shop for Fiat 500′s.
Frank DeGraaf
Big difference between display and sell — namely a state license as a dealership. I can see a couple of locked cars sitting in the storefront. That’s a nice way to get folks to see the car and to fill a vacancy.
I love your site. I wouldn’t worry about the minutia hair-splitting at all. Steve Patterson has been a little down on St. Louis lately. I follow his blog and yours from a whole different city and there’s been a noticeable “downside” to his blogging pertaining to St. Louis recently.
Call it what you want. Display case, a dealership, mini-dealership, studio, satellite Fiat or whatever…….it’s still good that downtown is going to showcase NEW cars – a product that hasn’t been showcased in a while. The possibility of this builds excitement and potentially other opportunities for downtown.
Seriously, keep up the good work!!
I love St. Louis so much I take off the rose colored glasses that everyone else wears 24/7 and work to show those areas where we can do better. Ig I didn’t think we could do better I’d have left years ago.