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Randy Haron, owner and general manager of Haron Jaguar Land Rover, said the new Downtown Fresno showroom was built with the customer in mind.

published on January 21, 2019 - 2:03 PM
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After 18 months of construction, Haron Jaguar Land Rover is moving into its new showroom on Ventura Avenue and L Street in Downtown Fresno.

A landmark downtown location since 1945, the new two-story building is on the same location as the original one.

The old building was demolished in June 2017, with doors opened for the new location in mid-December 2018 – expanding the space from 12,000 square feet to 43,500 square feet.

During construction, Haron Jaguar Land Rover was operating out of six different locations in the downtown area.

The new building has a modern, sleek design that incorporates symmetrical architecture, wood and leather. The Fresno facility is the first dealership in California to have the new “Arch Concept” corporate design, which will be implemented globally to all Jaguar Land Rover locations within the next two years.

The new design incorporates a “customer core” area which resembles a lounge that has a full coffee and snack bar, offers food delivery, phone charging stations and access to free high speed fiber-optic Wi-Fi, the fastest available and the first in the downtown area, said Randy Haron, owner and general manager.

The new facility has enough room to showcase about 12 cars, up from five cars for the old facility, but Haron said the new design is squarely for the customer.

The idea behind the “customer core” is to provide people with a comfortable atmosphere where they can wait while their car is being serviced.

“It really wasn’t about how much showroom space we had, it was about accommodating the customer,” Haron said. “We changed the philosophy to the car is not the most important thing, the customer and the guest experience is. We want to make it a great, nice environment you can stay in, instead of dropping off your car and going.”

A unique feature that won’t be found in any other Jaguar Land Rover dealership is the large photographic art decorating the interior of the building. Haron himself took all of the photographs in the facility, featuring Jaguar models and natural landmarks from Fresno’s backyard, with the largest being a 60 foot-long photograph of Yosemite National Park.

Jaguar Land Rover prefers dealerships use corporate photographs for decoration, but because of the quality of Haron’s photography and the local subject matter, he said an exception was made.

The service area has enough room to service 25 cars, up from eight cars in the original facility and there was also an expansion for the parts department with four times the storage capacity as before.

While Haron Jaguar Land Rover has been a staple of the downtown area since 1945, there was a possibility that it could have moved to North Fresno.

Haron even said that a deposit was put down for property near other auto dealers on Palm and Herndon avenues.

However, in an effort to remain set apart from other luxury dealers, and with the rich history the Haron family has built in Downtown Fresno, Haron decided to keep the dealership in the same location.

Haron notes that his dealership has been the No. 1 Jaguar dealership in the country for several years, selling at two and a half times more than what is expected to be sold by the market penetration report for Jaguar Land Rover.

Haron said that the dealership is setting goals to double that figure over the span of the next several years.

New products from both Jaguar and Land Rover, including the first all-electric Jaguar, the I-PACE, and the plug-in hybrid PHEV Range Rover, which is already sold out, are keeping car buyers interested.

Though the new building has only been open for about two weeks, Haron has been hearing positive feedback on the updated facility, and he is hopeful that 2019 will be a strong year for Haron Jaguar Land Rover.

“We just see the market potential here in Fresno being fantastic,” Haron said. “Clearly we’ve invested a substantial amount of money into a new facility to take care of the customer, and that’s not for now, its not for tomorrow, its for a long time.”

There is going to be a ribbon cutting ceremony and an invite-only grand opening on Jan. 22.


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