Carvana, known for 'car vending machines,' plans E. Garden City facility
A Carvana vending machine facility in Arizona. The nation's largest online used-car retailer has bought 1.9 acres of land in East Garden City for a planned Carvana Customer Center. Credit: Kenneth Schuckman/Schuckman Realty Inc.
The nation’s largest online used-car retailer, known for its multistory "car vending machines," has bought 1.9 acres of land in East Garden City for a planned Carvana Customer Center.
Carvana paid $9.7 million for the North Avenue property, according to Schuckman Realty Inc., the Rockville Centre-based firm that represented the property seller in the deal.
"Carvana pursued this flagship opportunity along the Meadowbrook Parkway because of high visibility, not only from Meadowbrook Parkway, but also Old Country Road and the Roosevelt Field mall," Schuckman said in a statement Wednesday.
Carvana Co., which is based in Tempe, Arizona, did not respond to Newsday’s requests for comment, including on whether a vending machine is planned for the East Garden City site.
Located at 2 North Ave., the East Garden City property that Carvana bought is adjacent to a new retail development where a 57,000-square-foot "flagship" Whole Foods Market, at 867 E. Gate Blvd., opened in November 2020.
On Aug. 3, the town of Hempstead approved Carvana’s site plan for the customer center it wants to build on the East Garden City property, acting Building Department Commissioner Frederick A. Jawitz said.
The town issued a building permit Nov. 9, he said.
The customer center would be a 6,540-square-foot building with an attached auto storage tower, Jawitz said.
The property was sold to Carvana by Joup LLC, which is an affiliate of Midwood Investment & Development, the Manhattan-based real estate firm that redeveloped a former Pepsi bottling site for the new Whole Foods store in East Garden City last year.
Carvana buys and sells used cars online.
The company’s customers can choose to have their purchased cars delivered to their homes or they can pick up their vehicles at one of the company’s 30 car vending machines, according to the company’s website.
For the vending machine, "the customer simply drops their custom coin (which they receive upon arrival) into the car vending machine’s coin slot, which then illuminates the coin receptacle and activates the automated vehicle delivery system," according to the company’s website.
Most of the cars Carvana sells are delivered to customers’ homes, said Michael Baker, a managing director in the Boston office of D.A. Davidson Cos., a Great Falls, Montana-based financial services firm.
But the vending machines are a great marketing tool for the company, he said.
"They have more name recognition in the used-car online market than others, he said.
Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.
Snow totals may be less across the South Shore A winter storm is expected to pummel LI as artic air settles in across the region. NewsdayTV meteorologist Geoff Bansen has the forecast.
Snow totals may be less across the South Shore A winter storm is expected to pummel LI as artic air settles in across the region. NewsdayTV meteorologist Geoff Bansen has the forecast.
