Flat tire puts couple on course to owning dealership.

Byline: RETAIL NOTEBOOK By Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

Sometimes you just have to aim yourself where that ol' fickle finger of fate points.

Scott and Madelyn Russell were returning to visit Oregon for a friend's wedding last summer, after having moved from Eugene first to New Hampshire and then to Missouri in 2001. He's a geographer and she's a registered nurse, and they rode their BMW motorcycle west from Missouri along the course taken by Lewis and Clark.

There was a flat tire along the way, and a need to find a dealership upon reaching Eugene.

"When we got to Eugene, we discovered the dealership had recently closed," Scott Russell says. "And we started investigating things."

BMW had announced there was what the company calls an "open point" - a gap in its motorcycle dealership network - in Eugene.

The Russells saw it as their chance, and were busy putting together a proposal by late June. They got the word in late November that they'd been accepted as franchisees.

They've since purchased the former Bliss' Steak Ranch building on West 11th Avenue at Oak Patch Road for $540,000 and have submitted plans to the city to spend $670,000 to renovate and expand the building to accommodate a full-service dealership in well more than 5,000 square feet.

"We've pretty much put everything on our personal side on the line," Scott Russell says.

The need for a building with specialized features makes it impractical for him to lease, he said.

The couple had hoped to open by April 1, but are now looking at June 1.

"This is time No. 3 in Oregon for us, and hopefully the third time's a charm," Russell says.

Eugene businessman Bill Sokol had bought the West 11th building just last fall, and was completing structural and seismic upgrades - with plans to convert it to retail use - when the Russells came seeking a home for their dealership.

"I was in the middle of revamping, and all of a sudden Mr. BMW comes along," Sokol says.

While the former BMW dealership wasn't able to make a go of it in an undersized building on West Seventh Avenue - it closed last April - there are indicators that an aggressive, full-service facility will prosper in a market area that includes most of the Willamette Valley, Central Oregon and the central coast, Russell says. The new dealership will open in a building more than three times the size of the old one.

"There are demographics in Oregon that suggest we're going to have a dealership that will do well," Russell says.

In an addition to an emerging market for recreational riders of street motorcycles, he expects to bring in the business of police departments such as Springfield and Corvallis, the Lane County sheriff's office and Oregon State Police that use BMWs for some or all of the motorcycle operations.

Prices are not posted for the motorcycles listed on the new dealership's Web site (www.bmwor.com), but BMW is considered a high-end line that specializes in street bikes.

The Eugene-Springfield area already has dealerships for motorcycle lines including Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki, but the most direct competition in the street motorcycle category will come from Doyle's Harley-Davidson near Lane Community College.

The Russells have no experience in the motorcycle business, but they are bringing in factory-trained employees to help cast the dealership in a mold BMW is now promoting.

BMW is pushing single-line dealerships - those that trade exclusively in BMWs - with a full line of services and strong marketing.

"BMW requires us to have a fully functional dealership before we open our doors," Russell says. "They don't like the signs, `Please excuse our dust.' '

Retail notebook runs Thursdays. Contact Joe Mosely at 338-2384 or [e-mail].

CAPTION(S):

Scott and Madelyn Russell are turning the former Bliss' Steak Ranch building on West 11th Avenue into a BMW motorcycle dealership.