By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Greeted by light reflecting brightly off of windshields, community members gathered to celebrate the official opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony of Glasgow’s Don Franklin Cadillac dealership located at 1003 Happy Valley Road. The dealership is the first stand-alone Cadillac dealership in Don Franklin’s 27 dealerships and one of the newest Cadillac dealerships in Kentucky.
It took about nine months to get the locations ready for the Aug. 22 celebration, and a large portion of that construction took place during the pandemic. A time when most other places were temporarily, or, in some cases, permanently, closing or shifting to online only. According to Chain Store Guide, a data and analyst company that provides sale leads, research and geocoded information, 31,590 retail and food-service store locations permanently closed between Mar. 2020 and June 2021.
Owner Eddie Franklin — whose father opened the first Don Franklin dealership in 1968 — cited the people and the small town resilience as some of the reasons he felt comfortable building a new facility during this time.
“We believe in our small towns,” Franklin said. “We love small towns, we started in a small town and we believe the small town resiliency will last on and on. Glasgow was a great opportunity; it’s a small, growing city so we believed there was a great opportunity here.”
“We’re a believer in small town and hometown spirits,” he added.
According to Franklin this new facility and the old facility adjacent to the new — which will be used for mowers and other smaller equipment — will bring more employment opportunities to Glasgow and Barren County — based on the Kentucky Center for Statistics, Barren County has seasonally unadjusted unemployment of 5.4 percent — and he also mentioned Glasgow’s proximity to Bowling Green and Glendale as some of the reasoning for the demand he sees in this area for automotives.
“We feel that Glasgow, if not already, will be the biggest boom town in Kentucky.”
Eddie Franklin cuts the ribbon on the new facility located at 1003 Happy Valley Road on Aug. 22. Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1.
During the ceremony Eddie Franklin was presented an award by Cadillac for the official opening of the new facility. Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1.
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