Online car dealership establishes brick-and-mortar site in Woolwich

Carvana, the online used-vehicle dealer, plans to open a hub in Woolwich to serve customers from York to Bangor.

The company had a temporary site in Biddeford and was looking for a permanent hub. 

Charles W. Day at Porta & Co., along with Priority Real Estate Group in Topsham, represented the landlord.

The landlord is Woo Industrial LLC, and the deal was a multiyear lease transaction. Tempe, Ariz.-based Carvana declined to comment.

The 14,750-square-foot site is currently vacant. It previously was the home of BFC Marine, and before that housed Brothers Chevrolet.

Once a customer buys a vehicle from Carvana online, the company typically delivers cars to the buyer’s home or has buyers pick up vehicles from one of its car vending machines at its hub.

Carvana is expected to open at 126 U.S. Route 1 in Woolwich within the next two to three months. 

It competes with traditional brick-and-mortar dealerships, as well as other companies in the nascent online dealership space including CarMax, Vroom, CarLotz and Shift. Rival CarMax has a location in South Portland.

Despite a lot of hype and commercials, online car-buying represents a tiny fraction of U.S. car sales. 

J.P. Morgan analysts said in a recent research report that online dealers represent less than 1% of all used-vehicle sales, but they expect that market share to rise to about 12% by 2030. The U.S. used-vehicle market has annual sales of $841 billion.