West Covina : Car Dealership May Move

The City Council will decide Tuesday whether to approve a deal that would bring Covina Dodge to the West Covina Auto Plaza.

Ziad Alhassen, president of West Covina’s Hassen Imports Partnership and Hassen Development Corp., wants a five-year, $675,000 loan at 7% interest from West Covina’s redevelopment agency so he can prepare a 3.7-acre lot in the plaza for the dealership.

The council, acting as the city’s redevelopment agency, is scheduled to vote on the loan at its regular meeting Tuesday night.

If council members approve the loan, redevelopment manager Chet Yoshizaki said, Alhassen, who has guaranteed that the new dealership will bolster city coffers with $825,000 in annual sales taxes by 1998, intends to buy Covina Dodge and move it quickly.

The loss of the dealership would represent a significant financial blow to Covina, according to community development director Mike Marquez. He declined to say how much tax revenue the dealership generates annually, but said the average among the city’s eight dealerships is about $200,000.

“We offered everything within our legal means to help him stay here, but it wasn’t enough,” Marquez said of Covina Dodge, which is on Citrus Avenue, away from other dealerships and more than a mile from the nearest freeway.

The West Covina site, at 2000 E. Garvey Ave., is in a mall that has five other dealerships and is visible and easily accessible from the San Bernardino (10) Freeway.

Neither Alhassen nor Covina Dodge owner Harry Mooradian could be reached for comment.

Alhassen’s development company has built several West Covina projects, including the 20-acre West Covina Village Shopping Center and the 13-story California State Bank Tower.