Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 20, 1993 TAG: 9305200088
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Roanoke company has opened an average of two stores a week in the past two years, pushing its total operations from 200 stores to more than 300 in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia.
The company probably will expand into other states in time, said Nicholas Taubman, chairman. Advance, started in 1932 by his father, Arthur Taubman, also operates several 50,000-square-foot PDQ ("parts delivered quickly") centers.
When the Alabama center opens in February, some employees will transfer there initially, but the company will add to its work force, Taubman said. Grading will begin next week for the 240,000-square-foot center - about two-thirds the size of the Roanoke center of 375,000 square feet in the Centre for Industry and Technology.
That center was doubled in size in 1990 and about 70 employees were added, bringing the work force there to 200.
The family-owned company expanded in Roanoke a year ahead of its projected growth as a result of increasingly expensive car repairs, Taubman said. Advance Auto spent more than $10 million on its 1988 building, as big as four football fields, and on the expansion two years later.
One of the largest Roanoke-based companies, it has expanded almost 2 1/2 times from 125 stores five years ago.
Advance Auto owns land in the industrial park for a third-phase expansion to store and distribute parts and house a corporate office. The company's headquarters is in the Wasena section of Roanoke, and it has an advertising office on Salem Avenue. Seven of its stores are in the Roanoke Valley.
The auto parts market in the nation is "a flat business" this year, Taubman said, but Advance is trying to claim a larger share.
by CNB