Tarrant County new car sales king Tom Durant, owner of Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine, is expanding his holdings again, this time with the acquisition of a second Florida dealership.
Durant's Stingray Chevrolet in Plant City, Fla., has acquired the Bartow Chevrolet dealership just outside Lakeland, about 30 miles from Plant City. The area is east of Tampa along the Interstate 4 corridor.Keeping with Durant's practice of promoting from within, Steve Hurley, Durant's partner who runs the Stingray dealership, will promote his son Matthew to run the renamed Stingray Chevrolet Bartow.Durant said the new dealership is similar in size to his Classic Chevrolet operation in Granbury.Durant purchased the failed Florida dealership in late 2008, just as the national economy and the auto business were going off the cliff. Under his and Hurley's guidance, the facility east of Tampa has done well and is currently 64th in sales among all Chevy dealers.As of the end of August, Durant's Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine is on pace to retain the title of the nation's top-selling Chevy dealer for the sixth consecutive year. Classic's sales are off about 9 percent from 2011, which Durant attributes to the DFW Connector construction project around the dealership. Classic Chevrolet in Sugar Land, Durant's second-largest volume Chevy dealership, is the 22nd best-selling outlet for the brand with sales up 9 percent.Corrected listingA 120-acre property in north Fort Worth is still listed for sale at $10 million, but Hoffman International Properties no longer refers to it as the Amon Carter Estate.The Dallas real estate firm, which handles many high-dollar listings, had been marketing the property as once owned by Amon G. Carter, the late Fort Worth philanthropist and founder and publisher of the Star-Telegram. The real estate listing said Carter built the home in 1906. But Carter never owned the home. Rather, it was owned in the 1930s by James M. North, an editor at the Star-Telegram under Carter, the Star-Telegram reported Aug. 10.The listing now refers to the property, which includes an 8,000-square-foot house, two-story historical barn and guest house at 7760 Blue Mound Road, as the Blue Mound Estate.Goodwill job fairGoodwill Industries will sponsor a job fair from 9 a.m. to noon Oct. 4 at its Fort Worth headquarters, 4005 Campus Drive.Employers interested in participating should contact Kevin Williams at 817-332-7866, ext. 2071, or by e-mail at kwilliams@goodwillfw.org by Sept. 21. More than 30 employers, including Omni Fort Worth Hotel, Links Staffing and Waffle House, as well as 20 health fair vendors, are expected to participate."Our mission is to offer a hand up, not a handout," said Williams, director of Goodwill's North Texas Institute for Career Development and Career Services. "By connecting job seekers and employers, we are fulfilling our promise to help individuals with barriers to employment find meaningful work."Sandra Baker, 817-390-7727sabaker@star-telegram.comJim Fuquay, 817-390-7552jfuquay@star-telegram.comBarry Shlachter, 817-390-7718barry@star-telegram.comHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
