Chelsea's Palmer Ford dealership to shut down, owner confirms

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:05 p.m. and again at 12:37 p.m.

Chelsea's 95-year-old Palmer Ford dealership will shut down, its owner confirmed this morning.

Biff Weber, third-generation owner of the downtown Chelsea dealership, said the move is his decision. He's meeting with Ford corporate officials this afternoon in Dearborn to determine the timing and additional details on the wind-down.

Weber suggested economic conditions forced his hand.

"It's a voluntary thing on my part, so it's not like Ford's coming in and closing the business," Weber told AnnArbor.com. "Does anybody need to look at the balance sheet for the state of Michigan right now?"

The company's decision to close marks the first time in 2009 that the Ann Arbor region has lost an auto dealership.

Palmer Ford, officially Palmer Motor Sales Inc., employs about 25 workers. Weber said he was making an effort to secure positions for his employees at other businesses.

Ann Feeney, Chelsea's mayor, said the loss of the dealership is a painful blow for the city.

"It's shocking. From a historic perspective it’s very sad," she said. "And from a strictly business perspective, there’s a lot of people that buy cars from there, and they service them there - which means they come to town and, while waiting for their cars to get done, they shop."

The decision comes after Chelsea Update reported this week that Palmer Ford's new-car inventory had evaporated.

Chelsea Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bob Pierce was not available for comment this morning.

Feeney suggested the vacant property on Main Street in Chelsea could offer redevelopment opportunities.

"They're going to leave a big vacancy," she said. "If it can’t be a dealership, it would be nice to have a lovely, beautiful parking lot with some adjacent offices. That as a parking lot would solve a lot of problems downtown."

Feeney emphasized that the "tremendous support the Palmer family" provided to the Chelsea community would be missed.

"I don’t think you can even measure it," she said.

Palmer Ford's decision comes during a roller-coaster ride for the dealership industry, which celebrated the sales successes of the federal government's Cash For Clunkers program even as automakers are cutting more than 2,000 dealerships.

Ford has been pursuing "surgical trimming" of its 3,770-store dealership footprint throughout the country, according to Ward's Auto. Ford officials have said that they weren't conducting a massive reduction in dealerships.

That compares to the major reduction in dealerships at General Motors and Chrysler, which collectively are eliminating nearly 2,000 dealerships throughout the U.S.

Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at nathanbomey@annarbor.com or (734) 623-2587 or follow him on Twitter.