Long before shopping malls took center stage, the auto dealers in Glendale have been an economic force in the city. According to Philip Lanzafame, director of Development Services for Glendale, a rudimentary version of the Brand Boulevard of Cars has existed since the 1920s. Today, the auto sector generates 1,600 high tech jobs and $5 billion a year for the city. The key to their success has been joining forces to garner business and taking advantage of the city’s assistance. “We’re all independently owned and operated, but working as a team can bring new business to all of us,” said Jeanne Brewer, general manager of Acura of Glendale. “You’re competitive but also want everybody to win.” Brewer belongs to the Brand Boulevard of Cars Association, of which Johnny Harrison, head of the Lexus dealership in Glendale, serves as president. “It’s like a group effort to help bring business, not just to Brand Boulevard of Cars but to Glendale,” Harrison said. “It’s a unilateral voice to helping the city with some ideas that we have as a group, to help better the city as a whole. As a conglomerate of businesses, we help bring more traffic, more sales to this area, which, of course, helps not only us but also helps the city because of the tax base.” Once a month, the group, which includes representatives of 16 different dealerships, meets to discuss challenges they face and come up with advertising ideas. The group recently completed a joint campaign, a move that Harrison views as an advantage, given the location of Brand. “We benefit from being able to do joint advertising, since the Brand Boulevard of Cars is not visible from the freeway but is accessible from the 134, the 2 and the 5,” he said. Another benefit of Brand Boulevard of Cars is the fact that those in search of a new car don’t have to make multiple trips around the area to find one, the auto dealers said. “People want to go where they have a wide selection,” Brewer said. “What other auto row has more of a selection than Brand Boulevard of Cars? Especially as gas prices continue to go up, [it’s important that] you don’t have to maneuver from one place to another.” He also points out that the dealers get a bigger bang for their advertising buck. “When you see Brand Boulevard of Cars, people realize, oh, yes, there’s an Acura dealer on Brand Boulevard of Cars,” Brewer added. Harrison said that it is a definite plus that patrons don’t have to go from street to street to find a car. “It also helps to keep auto sales in Glendale,” he said. “They can look at anything they want in Glendale. They don’t have to go to Burbank or Pasadena or down to L.A.” Keeping auto sales in Glendale benefits the entire community because the taxes generated by auto sales support the city’s general fund. “You can spend sales tax dollars knowing they’re going back into the community to improve your quality of life,” Lanzafame said. Auto dealers have been able to build new dealerships and expand and improve existing ones with few obstacles, thanks to Lanzafame and other city officials. “The city’s been extremely cooperative and very helpful. They’ve assisted us with land use issues, zoning issues,” said Jarrett Anderson, an attorney who has served as executive secretary for the Brand Boulevard of Cars Association for about 35 years. “They’ve been very supportive in making it possible for dealers to expand. Glendale is a very friendly city for automobile dealers.” Lanzafame said that the city recognizes the importance of auto dealers trying to create better facilities for customers. “The most important thing we did is establish a single point of contact that would help them through the permitting process,” he said. “Having a single point of contact to bring them together was key in the expansion of all of the dealers, starting with Volkswagen and Lexus, Pacific BMW, Toyota, Glendale Nissan, Glendale Infiniti. All of those had expanded, and they’ve been able to work through the system quickly because they had the single point of contact.” Harrison called the improvements that the dealerships along Brand have made in recent years “amazing,” adding, “In three years, pretty much 75 percent of the businesses have remodeled, have built up or out or created an addition or made more parking available.” Harrison himself moved his dealership to a new location on Brand, while Brewer’s Acura dealership moved into the old space. “We were Acura of Pasadena for 19 years in 2004, when Lexus moved down to their new facility,” Brewer said. “This facility became available. In Pasadena, we were landlocked.” When Acura of Glendale opened in 2005, they went from having 70 feet of frontage on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena to 300 feet of frontage on Brand Boulevard. “We’ve had four times more space in terms of visibility,” Brewer said. To boot, the city has played a crucial role in helping dealerships with signage issues, according to Anderson. “It’s a big benefit as drivers go up and down,” he said. “There are meridian signs of all of the dealers on both sides of the street.” The Brand Boulevard of Cars are also given exposure by the city’s annual Cruise Night event, during which several hundred new and vintage cars are exhibited for crowds that have reached up to 40,000. This year, the event will take place July 19. Since the dealers on Brand showcase their vehicles during the event, Cruise Night has actually led to sales, according to Lanzafame. “They can benefit by additional exposure,” he said. More exposure is a good thing, considering that auto sales have been abysmal throughout the nation during the past couple of years. “We had tremendous growth over the last 15 years in auto sales,” Lanzafame said. “If it levels off, there’s less revenue than there was in the growth periods.” Thus far, Glendale has not been as adversely affected as the country or the state has been by low auto sales, Lanzafame continued. The launch of The Americana at Brand will only draw more attention to the Brand Boulevard of Cars. “My opinion is that for the dealers it’s going to be great,” Harrison said. “It’s going to bring more traffic, more people who might not normally come here. We have more housing that’s being done, more hotels that are being done, several restaurants that are going to bring more people into Glendale, which will in turn help everybody, not just auto dealers.” When those who have visited Glendale are ready to purchase a new car, Brand Boulevard of Cars will come to mind, Brewer believes. “What does it mean to be here on the Brand Boulevard of Cars?” she asked rhetorically. “There is strength in numbers.”