Keyes Dealership Puts on a Light Show on Van Nuys Blvd.

Thanks to energy-efficient technology, the glassed-in, atrium style of auto dealerships may have reached its ultimate expression with the brightly lighted Keyes European Mercedes Benz dealership, recently opened on the Sherman Oaks-Van Nuys border. 

“We think of it as a signature store for us,” said architect Dennis Flynn, whose Fullerton-based firm designed the impressive, 235,000-square-foot facility at 5400 Van Nuys Blvd., which cost $35 million to build.

The local dealership ranks among Mercedes Benz's top five architecturally significant dealerships nationwide, Flynn said, adding that the Keyes facility has “more of a museum quality type of finishing, with lots of attention to the ceiling, lighting and flooring."

“It really takes on a unique character at night, when the lights inside the
showroom began shining out on Van Nuys Boulevard,” he said.

The dealership took advantage of a triangular-shaped parcel of land in front of which Chandler Boulevard curves eastward from Van Nuys Boulevard. Howard Keyes, president of Keyes Automotive Group, accumulated various pieces of the site over time. 

“It almost feels like a peninsula,” Flynn said, adding that Keyes “wanted to show a lot of cars for sale and put them out on the point.” 

The new facility replaces the same dealership formerly located farther north, at 5711 Van Nuys Blvd. The former site will now become Keyes Hyundai.

The new Mercedes Benz dealership is expected to increase sales by more than 20 percent this year and possibly add more employees.

The building took branding elements, such as horizontal blue lines, required by automaker Mercedes Benz, and combined them with elements of Bauhaus, a European architectural style characterized by flat roofs, rectangular windows and circular design, to create what could be called “Bauhaus on steroids” in the Keyes building.

This type of high-visibility, glassed-in dealership represents an architectural
trend that began to take off during the last 15 years after more efficient
heating and cooling systems, insulated glass and solar panels became available, Flynn said.

Before that, dealership designs were more closed in, with large overhangs to shade cars and reduce energy consumption. The new Keyes dealership made extensive use of the newest energy-efficient technology and sustainability methods.

Linda Francis, a LEED-credentialed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) consultant who helped with the building, listed some of the methods. They included:

• Nearly an acre of rooftop solar panels that double as carports to provide shade for employee parking and reduce the sun’s heat on the building itself;
• Double-paned glass throughout, to insulate against outdoor heat and cold;
• Window shades that automatically lower to knock down heat and glare from direct sunlight;
• Recycling of 90 percent of onsite materials from an existing, eight-story office building. Doors, plumbing fixtures, copper wiring, wooden timbers and metal studs and beams were hand-sorted during demolition and sent to recycling plants. Concrete from the old building was crushed and used as aggregate paving for the base of the new building.
• State-of-the-art water-chilling towers that use water circulation to heat and cool the building.

Flynn, who has spent 25 years designing more than 150 auto dealerships in California, Nevada and Arizona, said this newest design has stopped customers in their tracks.

“I was there last Friday,” he said, “and people would walk up and stop at the reception desk, put their hands on the desk so they wouldn’t fall over while looking up and just go, 'Wow!’ "