Left to right: Town of Okotoks CAO Elaine Vincent, High River Toyota General Manager Malika Rajani, Okotoks Mayor Tanya Thorn, High River Toyota Dealer Principal Saleem Budhwani, Salima Budhwani, Fayaz Budhwani, and Toyota Canada Prairie and Pacific Zone Manager Alec Markin, Dealer Development Manager Vaughn Thibault, and National Manager David Lee.
Shovels hit the ground on Wednesday (Oct. 16) for a new car dealership in Okotoks.
High River Toyota will be moving its base of operations to the 35,975 square-foot facility that's being built on Wedderburn Drive on the north end of town, across from D'Arcy Crossing.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held, with representatives from the Town of Okotoks, High River Toyota, and Toyota Canada present.
Mayor Tanya Thorn was among those who addressed the crowd, praising the planned dealership's various energy-efficient features.
Some of those include a green wall and green roof patio,energy-efficient LED lighting, public EV chargers, and large window panels to allow for natural lighting.
Dealer Principal Saleem Budhwani Budhwani says they plan to make efficient use of the car lot too.
"The cars will be all under a solar carport, a solar structure. Most likely, we'll be in a situation where we'll end up producing roughly 900kW of solar power with our requirement being roughly 200-300, so I may have excess power that I'll have to find a way to use or put in the grid."
The move has been a long time coming, as High River Toyota has been looking to build a new facility for about 10 years now.
Budhwani feels it's been well worth the wait.
"I feel good about it. Yes, it was a long journey because we had to make sure there were stakeholders involved in the process. Toyota does the market study and they have to approve the locations. We had to move three locations. There were a couple of locations that we liked but couldn't get approval from Foothills County, and then this was the location that we picked in Okotoks. The Town of Okotoks team did work with us, and now here we are, ready to start the process."
It's quite an expansion compared to the High River Toyota building, as it's roughly three times larger than the 12,000-square-foot High River location.
With that expansion will come an expansion of their team, which is expected to grow from 40 employees to 75 after the move.
They also plan on making parts of the facility available for charity events.
As for the High River Toyota location, Budhwani does plan to hold onto it once the dealership moves to Okotoks.
He's not yet certain what the future holds for the building, but he's exploring a few possible ventures.
"I may still consider doing something with it. It could be a used car lot, I may apply for another franchise, or it could be a collision centre, but it won't be shut down right away."
The Okotoks facility is estimated to be completed by December of 2025, though Budhwani mentioned that unforeseen circumstances including weather and supply chain issues could add a few more months onto the timeline.