Carter dealerships to stay put?

In yesterday's Burnaby Now article, Burnaby: Can the city stay on course?, Burnaby City Councillor Nick Volkow's statement that he doesn't think that the Carter dealerships are going anywhere, puts to rest my guess that they may make the move from their current location on Lougheed Hwy to the new site being developed at Still Creek.

In my opinion, if you look at the setup at the Carter dealerships, you see 1970's written all over them as they represent pure urban sprawl of the past on their largely paved lots filled with vehicles with a small building and shop tucked away in one corner. From a visual perspective, if you compare the Carter dealerships to Destination Toyota, the Toyota dealership at Madison and Lougheed wins hands down. Whereas the compact Toyota dealership blends in nicely with the surrounding new development, the Carter dealerships look plain, ugly and out of place.  If you want to compare the quality of the cars...well... this is not an automobile review site, but the last time I noticed, Toyota has not had to seek bankruptcy protection due to the poor workmanship that is associated with Chrysler and GM cars.

The compact, two-level Toyota showroom and lot at Lougheed and

Madison fits in better with the surrounding area than the large,

unattractive Carter dealerships reminiscent of the past. 

Simply put, in their current form, the Carter dealerships are not an attraction but an eyesore as the Brentwood area changes around it.  If the dealerships are not going anywhere, I hope they take a page out of Destination Toyota's book and remodel their dealerships. They might even consider downsizing their lots to make room for development that fits the growth strategy for Brentwood. In doing so, they would contribute to change instead of impeding it.