Belle Tire sets sail for Windy City

CHICAGO — Belle Tire Distributors is about to add the Windy City to the Motor City and the Hoosier state to its address book, with plans to open up to 60 retail stores in the Chicago metro area in the coming three years.

The Allen Park, Mich.-based dealership, which has built a network of 35 stores in Indiana over the past six years, has five stores nearing completion in Chicago's southern suburbs, with plans to open four of them before year-end, starting with Naperville and Joliet in late October/early November.

Belle Tire's executive team greenlighted the move into Chicago a couple of years ago after studying the market there for nearly five years and — according to Don Barnes III, Belle Tire's president — determining it was, for the most part, a "fragmented market, with no clear leader" and up to half of the market served by relatively small dealers.

Belle Tire's assessment of the Chicago market is borne out to a large part by an independent analysis of the market by Tire Business staff.

The company's strategy is to start in the southern suburbs and expand westward and northward thereafter, Mr. Barnes said, with stores there in line with the dealership's existing store format — 10 bays (two with alignment pits) and up to 15 staff (four auto techs, eight tire techs and the rest sales, etc.).

All of the new stores are greenfield construction, Belle Tire's preferred method of growth. Mr. Barnes did not rule out growth by acquisition, but stressed any possible acquisition would have to make sense on several levels before the firm would go that route.

Mr. Barnes declined to provide details as to the scale of investment Belle Tire is budgeting for this expansion.

Chicago market

With a population of roughly 9.5 million inhabitants, the Chicago metro area — aka Chicagoland — is the nation's third largest metropolitan area. Depending on the definition of the Chicago metro area, there could be as many as 5 million cars, vans, light trucks, etc. registered throughout the region.

In pulling the trigger on entering the Chicago market, Belle Tire noted that the tire and auto service business in and around the Windy City is fragmented.

If so, just how fragmented?

There are only a handful of independent dealerships with multiple locations, led by Mavis Tire Supply through the 20-plus NTB Tire locations it took over two years ago from TBC Corp.

Beyond that, Cassidy Tire with 14 stores, Suburban Tire with seven outlets and Wentworth Tire with six are the next largest.

Otherwise the region is served to a large extent by single-outlet independent dealerships.

At the same time, though, national chains, various franchise networks and both Bridgestone Americas and Goodyear have relatively strong presences in the metro area.

Midas International has the largest presence at roughly 50 franchised outlets, followed by Car-X Tire (a Monro Inc. brand) with 37 franchised locations, Firestone Complete Car Care with 30 outlets, Pep Boys with 25 outlets, Goodyear's Just Tires brand with 21 stores, Discount Tire and Meineke Car Care with roughly 20 locations each, and a dozen or so Quick Lane Tire outlets at Chicago-area Ford dealers.

Ready to open

With the opening of the first stores just weeks away, Belle Tire is working behind the scenes to secure a marketing tie-up with one or more of Chicago's professional sports teams, Mr. Barnes said, without discussing details of any pending deals.

Such a deal would echo the company's marketing strategy in Indianapolis, where Belle Tire established ties with the NFL's Colts (radio network) and NBA's Pacers (season schedule sponsor), or Detroit, where the dealership has had marketing relationships with the NBA's Pistons and the NHL's Red Wings.

Additional store openings are set for Villa Park (Nov. 11), Shorewood (Nov. 15) and Aurora (Feb. 15, 2022).

The company — which will mark its 100th year in business in 2022 and is still family owned — likely will avoid opening stores in the heart of Chicago proper, Mr. Barnes said, owing largely to the prohibitive cost of appropriate real estate.

The dealership started recruiting auto techs more than a year ago and recently forged an alliance with Universal Technical Institute to support its efforts to recruit and train new automotive techs.

Belle Tire plans to offer its full complement of services in the Chicago market, including its "out-the-door" pricing — the price quoted includes all ancillary costs.

In addition, Belle offers a free alignment check, free lifetime rotation, free balancing and free flat repairs for the life of the tires with the purchase of a tire installation package.

According building permit documentation in the Chicago area, Belle Tire has been laying the groundwork for this expansion for at least the past two years, making appearances before several suburban town councils for zoning approvals, etc.

Belle's jump into Chicago comes six years after the Allen Park-based dealership opened its first stores in Indiana, where the firm now has 35 stores, including 17 in the Indianapolis metro area.

What's next?

Even as the dealership prepares to open its first handful of stores in Chicago, Belle Tire is evaluating its next move, which, according to Mr. Barnes, could be one — or more — of a half-dozen metro areas in contiguous regions, such as Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cleveland, Columbus or Cincinnati.

Of these, Milwaukee is probably most like Chicago in that it's more fragmented, without a clear market leader or leaders.

Medium-term, the dealership — which operates 130-plus retail locations in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana — expects to grow to 200 locations or more in the coming few years.

Belle Tire opened its first store in Detroit in 1922. Its store count makes it the eighth largest independent tire retailer in the U.S, according to Tire Business research.