Magarity Ford to close

The worsening woes of the Big Three automakers continued to spread yesterday, as yet another local dealership said it was shutting down.

Magarity Ford of Chestnut Hill will close at month's end after 20 years along the 8200 block of Germantown Avenue, said owner Joseph Magarity.

Magarity, 56, said he hoped to sell the property and invest the proceeds in his Chevrolet dealership in Flourtown, Montgomery County, which will remain open.

"We needed to make a decision to make one dealership stronger than the other," Magarity said.

A record number of dealers across Pennsylvania are expected to go dark by year's end - three times the historic average, according to the Pennsylvania Automotive Association. Magarity's is the latest as the economy tightens and beleaguered automakers force consolidations while lobbying for a federal bailout.

Magarity said he notified his 35 Chestnut Hill employees on Friday afternoon - the same day Ford Motor Co. announced a $129 million decline in quarterly profit and said it would cut 10 percent of its salaried workforce in North America.

Magarity said his buyout with the Detroit automaker meant Ford would buy back some of his 2009 inventory. Remaining 2008 models will be cleared out through sales.

"It's not a lot," Magarity said of the agreement, "but, hopefully, it's enough for us to come back with our heads above water."

He said the "squeeze" from Ford and its financing arm, Ford Motor Credit Co., which helps pay for the cars on his lot, had "gotten too tight" as sales fell. Ford has been pushing dealers to consolidate.

Magarity said his boutique Chestnut Hill location - a mainstay that had sold Fords for years before him - was inconsistent with the large lots now in vogue.

The Chestnut Hill site had been "a family business," Magarity said. "I went to grade school three blocks from here. . . . I enjoyed walking the avenue and saying hello to all the people I knew."

Magarity said some of his employees would transfer to his Chevrolet shop on Bethlehem Pike, where he employs 55 people. The rest - longtime friends and co-workers - would be jobless.

Germantown Avenue toy-shop owner Fran O'Donnell, of the Chestnut Hill Business Association, said the group was helping spread the word about the available parcel.

"I think it's a shame," O'Donnell said, "to see a family business leave the avenue."