Shawnee Mission Kia celebrates its new location

Spring is in full swing, summer is right around the corner and that excites the employees at Shawnee Mission Kia for reasons beyond selling the Optima, the Sorento and numerous other Kia vehicles.

They have a new building to show off. And throughout the spring and summer, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays, there will be a festive atmosphere at Shawnee Mission Kia, 7951 Shawnee Mission Parkway in Merriam.

“We will have grill-outs and radio spots coming in every Saturday,” said Rob “Pope” Childers, general sales manager at Shawnee Mission Kia.

Since 2001, Shawnee Mission Kia was at 7810 Shawnee Mission Parkway, Overland Park. That building was nearly 70 years old.

“We have renovated seven times since I have been here, and I have been here since 2001,” Childers said. “We resurfaced the lot three times. You can only patch so many times before you run out of space.”

It was time for a new facility. Management at Shawnee Mission Kia looked across Shawnee Mission Parkway at a facility that once sold Hummers for its new location.

The building was gutted. Shawnee Mission Kia spent $4 million on the new facility that opened Oct. 1.

Oh, there were a few obstacles.

“There were a lot of discussions,” Childers said. “A lot of it you had to deal with the city. We are in Overland Park, and across the street (at the new location), we are in Merriam. Those two cities had to figure it out.”

Childers said that a GPS navigation device or a smartphone takes everybody now to the new building.

It was also important for the new facility to match the model that Kia’s corporate office wants for all its dealerships.

“Kia has a great plan wanting to make sure you have the same experience at every Kia dealership , so when you walk in you are familiar already even if you are out of state,” Childers said. “You know where the service department is going to be. You know where the sales department is going to be. You know where the parts are going to be.”

A couple of things that make the new Shawnee Mission Kia store beneficial for its customers are the increase in bays in the service department and the ease of turning into the new location.

The increase in service bays went from six to 13 at the new location.

“The service department is brand new,” Childers said. “They built it from the ground up. The service area has been completely streamlined. We are getting people in and out much faster, and that makes them a lot happier about being able to not stay here as long.”

Being on the south side of Shawnee Mission Parkway allows for easier access to Shawnee Mission Kia, Childers said.

“Finally, it is a right-hand turn into the building instead of turning left (when coming off Interstate 35),” he said.

Later this summer there should be even more excitement for all Kia dealerships when the 2016 Kia Optima sedan arrives. It made its debut a couple of weeks ago at the New York International Auto Show.

“We should start seeing them sometime between June and August,” Childers said. “That is our cream of the crop. It has been the staple for Kia for a long time.

“We have had a couple of customers come in looking specifically for it because they saw the picture or went to the auto show.”

When they do arrive, Shawnee Mission Kia will have a shiny new building to show off the shiny new cars.

“We feel this is a new building that opened on October 1st because they gutted the whole thing, and the service bay is completely brand new,” Childers said. “We did increase staff. We hired four new techs. Our sales department grew by a third.

“I have sales guys who are three-, four-, seven-year vets of the store. They were ecstatic when we moved in here. We have a lot more space. We have more storefront. It is nice to have our new cars in a new building for the pure fact that everything is clean.”

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Shawnee Mission Kia celebrates its new location."