Morgan Auto pays $42M for Coconut Creek car dealership 

Morgan Auto Group is expanding its South Florida portfolio with a $42 million dealership purchase in Broward County. 

The Tampa-based car retailer bought Al Hendrickson Toyota at 5201 and 5401 West Sample Road in Coconut Creek, records and Vizzda show. Morgan secured a $113 million mortgage from Bank of America that is also backed by a Fort Myers car dealership the company recently purchased. 

The Coconut Creek deal involves two adjacent properties with five buildings spanning nearly 82,000 square feet, completed in 1988 and 1989. 

The seller, an entity managed by auto dealer Alfred Hendrickson Jr., paid $8.3 million for the 20.3-acre site in 1989, records show. 

Founded in 2004, Morgan Auto owns 62 other dealerships across Florida, including two retail sites selling Hyundai and Genesis vehicles in Kendall, an unincorporated neighborhood in southwest Miami-Dade County. 

Auto dealership transactions are rare in South Florida, and when they happen they tend to command hefty prices. Last year, Lithia & Driveway, a Medford, Oregon-based national car dealer, paid a combined $96 million for six dealerships in Doral, Miami Gardens and Florida City that sell Acura, Honda, Hyundai, Genesis, Kia, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Volkswagen model cars and trucks. The dealerships were previously owned by South Florida auto moguls the Lehman family and Ron Esserman. 

In 2020, Redwood Capital Investments, a firm tied to Maryland billionaires Jim Davis and Steve Bisciotti, dropped a combined $90.5 million for dealerships in Margate, Tamarac and West Palm Beach.