QuickTake:

Carvana sells vehicles entirely online and is rapidly growing across the United States. It’s eyeing Eugene as a site for expansion, city records show.

Carvana, an Arizona-based vehicle sales company, is considering a Eugene site for a 83,000-square-foot facility and sprawling parking lot in an industrial-zoned area, city records show. 

Carvana has requested a preliminary consultation with city officials and filed materials about the potential project, which would be located on about 68 acres bounded by Awbrey Lane and Auction Way east of Highway 99 and the Eugene Airport. 

Carvana sells its vehicles entirely online through a process that allows customers to view vehicles with 360-degree views, apply for financing and submit documentation for a trade-in vehicle — all without the standard pitch from a salesperson. Purchased vehicles are delivered or picked up with a token. Customers watch their car being retrieved from a massive tower, which the company characterizes as a “vending machine.” After a test spin, they can take possession and drive off.

Strategically, the project site is next to Adesa Northwest, 90485 Auction Way. Adesa, a Carvana subsidiary, sells vehicles on the wholesale market through auctions. 

“The proposed use of vehicle outdoor display, merchandise, and storage is permitted” within the industrial zoning classification at the site, the project’s narrative says. 

A Carvana spokesperson declined to comment.

The company’s footprint has rapidly grown since its 2012 founding in Arizona. Its first vending machine facility opened in Midtown Atlanta in 2013. By the end 2024, the company had bought and sold more than 4 million vehicles. This month, Carvana joins the S&P 500, an index of 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S.

It’s unclear from the filing how the potential Carvana facility may be configured. The vending machine buildings are just one type. The company also operates large inspection and reconditioning facilities that prepare vehicles for retail sales.

One such reconditioning facility is in Wood Village about 15 miles east of Portland. That facility allows same-day shipping of vehicles to customers in the Portland area.

Carvana acquired Adesa in 2022 and sees value in co-locating its wholesale auction facilities with inspection and reconditioning centers that aid retail centers, its quarterly filing to shareholders in October said.

“As we integrate these sites, we combine retail and wholesale capabilities within single sites,” the filing said. “In order to support retail sales, a site must have reconditioning capabilities. In order to support wholesale disposition, a site must have auction capabilities.”

The 68-acre site has three lots: north, center and south. The north lot’s project scope would include clearing the site and constructing new pavement and curbs, three above-ground basins for stormwater management and the 83,000-square-foot building.

The center lot would have new signs and stripes of parking pavement and the installation of curbs and new pavement and area that is currently vacant land. The south lot would require clearing gravel, dirt, shrubs, a new driveway and new pavement and curbs. The overall project site would have landscaping around the perimeter, as required by city setback requirements, the project narrative says.

The project would have access over the existing wetland areas to connect the north and central lots, allowing the site to “expand and increase its capacity for production and storage,” the letter of intent says.

The planned consultation with the city is not a formal application for a building permit. Rather, it’s a preliminary step that developers and building owners can take when they are weighing whether to pursue a project and formally apply for building permits and other steps needed.

The questions the company has submitted are routine, asking if additional studies are needed during the permitting about other requirements, such as permits for building a road over existing wetlands and sewer and water service requirements. 

City records show a project consultation is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 6.

For two decades, Ben Botkin’s journalism career saw him criss-cross the West, a path with stops in rural Idaho, Las Vegas and, now, finally, Lane County. Ben reported on local government and the statehouse in Idaho before he moved to the Bulletin in Bend and covered education in central Oregon.

Then, for four years, he covered Clark County government, which has oversight over the Las Vegas Strip, and served as the lead political reporter during the 2016 election cycle. During that time, Ben wrote about the county’s child welfare agency, law enforcement, the start of Nevada’s medical marijuana industry and homeland security. His reporting sparked the criminal indictments and convictions of three government officials, including a city animal control supervisor convicted of animal cruelty.

He also covered national stories like the 2016 armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon and the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Since 2018, Ben has reported on Oregon state government, first for the Statesman-Journal in Salem and then for The Lund Report, a Portland-based nonprofit that covers health care. His reporting on gaps in children’s health coverage led to state Medicaid policy changes.

Most recently, Ben worked more than two years at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered criminal justice, health and human services. His work often incorporates the voices of vulnerable Oregonians from all walks of life.

As Lookout’s Politics & Policy Correspondent, Ben digs up the most intriguing and relevant stories about how Lane County decisions impact residents.