ARLINGTON — The reopening of Dwayne Lane’s Arlington Chevrolet dealership, this time on Highway 9 at the former site of Oso Lumber, packed the house with dignitaries from the community on Jan. 19, including one who had a personal history with the site.

“Not many businesses can bring in this many people at their openings,” said Tom Lane, president of Dwayne Lane’s Family of Auto Dealerships. “This is just a wonderful community, with a lot of friends and a family atmosphere, and we’re very excited to be back.”

Tom Lane was joined at that afternoon’s ribbon-cutting not only by father Dwayne and the rest of the family, but also by Arlington Mayor Margaret Larson and Michael Prihoda, executive director of the Arlington-Smokey Point Chamber of Commerce. Several Arlington City Council members, city administrators and other Chamber members stopped by for the four-hour open house of the facility that followed, along with local luminaries such as Snohomish County Council member John Koster and Shawn Yanity of the Stillaguamish Tribe.

According to Tom Lane, not only was the reopened dealership fully open for business as of the 4 p.m. ribbon cutting, but it had already sold 10 new Chevrolets by that time.

“I think people heard we were coming back and were waiting for it,” Lane said. “Cars kept driving by our location and once we got some inventory in, people stopped by to ask us about it. We’re off to a roaring start.”

Lane noted that this marks the 57th year of the Dwayne Lane’s Family of Auto Dealerships, and he expects the 15-employee dealership in Arlington to increase its inventory as the economy improves.

“We’re almost outside of our shop capacity already,” Lane said. “People are demanding even more service than we counted on. We’ve been changing oil all week. We’ll probably be adding a hoist.”

Not only has Dwayne Lane’s Arlington Chevrolet dealership gone from little more than an acre of facility space when it left town in 2009, to five acres at its new location, but it’s also expanded its service from just GMC to all makes and models of vehicles, both imported and domestic.

Cal Kinney couldn’t help but feel a bit of nostalgia as he arrived to present Tom and Dwayne lane with a special photograph. Dwayne Lane’s Arlington Chevrolet now occupies the same building as Kinney’s old Arlington Ford dealership, which he ran from 1970-1985, and Kinney brought a photo of his former storefront from 1982 which he gave to the Lanes.

“They’ve done a really great job of renovating this place,” Kinney said as he walked through the interior. “Running my dealership here was a great time in my life. The community was really good to me, so I expect it’ll treat Tom the same way. I’m thrilled that this place is back to being an auto dealership. That’s the way it should be.”