By Rosemary McCoy

The south location of Sioux Falls Abra Auto Body & Glass, an offshoot of Sioux Falls Ford Lincoln and Luxury Auto Mall, is moving into a former casino on Carolyn Avenue and expanding the building.

The new location will incorporate Ford’s collision services that didn’t make the move earlier this year to the new dealership on West 26th Street, said Ed Bloom, the general manager at Ford. He’s a partner in the two Sioux Falls Abra franchise locations with his father-in-law, Randy Nehring, who owns both dealerships, and brother-in-law Mike Chaplin, the general manager at Luxury Auto Mall. Bloom and Chaplin eventually will become partners in the dealerships, too.

Abra South is in a leased location at 4001 W. 34th St., just a few blocks from the new site at 2601 S. Carolyn Ave. Deuces Casino had been in the building for several years, and before that, it was a nightclub. The building is visible from Interstate 29, which is an asset, Bloom said.

H&R Construction of Sioux City will gut the 9,000-square-foot building before the remodeling begins, and it’s putting up a 4,000-square-foot addition. Abra expects to be moved in by April 1, 2018.

Abra North

The new body shop will feature state-of-the-art equipment and the latest tools, Bloom said. That will allow Abra to work on new vehicles that are being built with some aluminum parts instead of steel, he said.

The new location will have two paint booths and a reconditioning facility that will work on the dealerships’ vehicles in addition to customers’ cars.

Abra North opened in early summer in a new building at 201 S. Carolyn Ave., near Luxury Auto Mall. That site also has been doing Ford’s collision work.

With the two new locations, “we’ll have a greater capacity for taking care of customers and insurance companies,” Bloom said.

Abra North