Khal Obeidat, a manager of City Ford, 325 U.S. Highway 24-40, said the company has sold the house west of the dealership to make way for a larger used-car lot. The home, which is being moved to Reno by new owners Ed and Sylvia Kesinger, will be replaced with an office building for the used-car salespersons, Obeidat said.

“We are in the first steps now,” he added. “We plan to level it off and add lighting. The building will be a simple building.”

The dealership in the past has had from 20 to 30 used cars on its lot, Obeidat said.

“We are in the process of planning to have about 100 used cars, with prices ranging from $1,500 on up, to give school kids and first-time buyers a chance to own cars.”

The dealership is also establishing second-chance financing to help people who don’t have a credit history or who have a bad credit history.

“They’ll be able to have a car here,” Obeidat said. “We’ll do the financing.”

He said the Ford dealership, which owns highway footage stretching from the Sonic restaurant to the Laming, Tice and Shepek building, will continue to stock from 70 to 100 new vehicles on its lots.

One of the dealership’s specialties, he said, is selling program cars, primarily cars that have been leased for one to two years, still are under factory warranty and carry relatively low mileage.

The business is drawing from a larger area, a trend Obeidat said he hopes will continue.

“We’re targeting the Topeka, Lawrence, Leavenworth County, Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, areas,” he said.

And through this, more people are becoming acquainted with Tonganoxie.

“We bring in a lot of people who didn’t know of Tonganoxie before,” he added.