Penticton Toyota has reopened following a devastating fire that destroyed almost all of its facility in 2022. It’s a remarkable story from the family that owns the dealership, its only one, and has a long history with it.
Dealer Principal Larry Pidperyhora began working as a salesperson, rose up through the management ranks to eventually become a partner in 2003, and then became the sole owner in 2015. He has three sons working in the dealership: Larry Jr. is the General Manager, Ivan is the Assistant Service Manager, and Tyler is the Internet Director. Larry Sr.’s sister, Marina, is a Business Development Manager with the company.
The fire occurred on May 11, 2022, due to two individuals who set fire to a container with flammable materials next to the facility. Larry Jr. said there was no apparent reason for the two individuals to set the fire, and that both were charged. The fire ran through the roof of the service area and spread. The showroom did not physically burn down, but it had to be completely gutted because of smoke and water damage.
Larry Jr. said the magnitude of seeing the building burn, and the little that was left of it, was devastating.
Larry Pidperyhora Jr., General Manager
“It was very difficult as a family to basically watch this happen,” Larry Jr. told Canadian auto dealer. “You get this feeling like you have to start over again after watching what you’ve put so much love, attention, passion and time into, and watch it basically burn down in front of you. When it’s your livelihood and obviously the livelihood of 55 other people that work for us, it’s quite the thing to contemplate.”
He said the day after the fire the family began “frantically and feverishly” moving its operation into a fully-imaged Toyota used car facility and detail centre, which it had built on the property next to the new dealership. It had opened three weeks prior to the fire, but was only 5,000 square-feet and designed to include less than 10 employees.
“We were retrofitting our used car building to become our lifeboat to resume operations until we figured out the next step,” said Larry Jr. “It was full triage. We were extremely lucky and extremely grateful. The fact you have basically a smaller version of it to kind of be able to exist in, to us that was an eerily bizarre coincidence.”
He said it took about 17 months to receive the permits needed to start building in October 2023. It took almost 10 months to build the new facility. Though some employees moved to the temporary facility, all were kept on the payroll. The ownership had business interruption insurance.
“It was very important for us to retain as much of our staff as we could to convey the confidence we had to get through this,” said Larry Jr. “It was not a time to disband our team; it was really a time to work to keep our team together. That was our mentality.”
