RV owners won't let pump prices keep them off the road

Sunday, March 09, 2008

How many times have you been driving down the interstate recently and passed a motor home and thanked the Lord that you weren't driving one of those things into a gas station?

The thought of filling up a motor home or even a six-wheeled pickup towing a fifth-wheel RV can be a little unnerving these days.

Surely the owners of such vehicles will stay home this spring to save money.

Yeah, right.

During a slow economy, recreation tends to take a weak hit. Folks may not have enough discretionary money to put a new sprinkler system in their yard, but they are going to go play somewhere.

You're still going to see plenty of RVs on the road this year. What you won't be able to see is their destination. Shorter trips closer to home will be the norm.

"A family that might have gone on a trip to Maine this summer will go to Gulf Shores instead," Jim Cooley, the owner of the Dandy RV Superstore in Oxford, told me this past week.

The RV industry that includes motor homes, travel trailers and pull-behind campers is at a peculiar time, according to people who monitor its economic outlook.

From 2002 to 2006, the industry saw five consecutive years of record growth. That came despite the highest gas prices in U.S. history. The shipments of new RVs to dealers declined 9.5 percent last year, but to the optimist it was still the fourth-highest sales year in RV industry in the past 25 years.

Projections of RV sales for this year are bleak. Richard Curtin, the director of consumer surveys at the University of Michigan, is the economic guru of the industry. He blames declining RV sales on higher credit standards, declining household wealth and lower consumer confidence.

Regardless, we are left with an RV nation of sorts where one in 12 vehicle-owning households now owns an RV. Those folks aren't about to stay home even though they will most definitely change the way they are going to play.

History tells us that in tough economic times, RV owners take shorter trips and enjoy longer stays at the campground to save on gas costs.

Studies show that RV owners will adjust to a slow economy and high gas prices. Some just take the attitude that the difference between $2.50 a gallon and $3.25 a gallon is only a small part of a two- or three-week vacation. Others say they will take an additional family along to split gas costs.

The RV industry knows how to put a good spin on things, too. In 2005 gas prices rose from $1.78 a gallon in January to more than $3 per gallon post-Hurricane Katrina. A study released by the industry said gas prices would need to triple to make RV use more expensive for a family of four than other forms of travel. The study pointed out that airfares and hotel rates also rise as fuel costs increase.

One business that sways with the economy and depends heavily on RV users is Talladega Superspeedway. It's probably a good sign for the RV industry that despite the bleak economic outlook, the speedway will unveil yet another new RV campground for the Aaron's 499 on April 27. The 180-spot RV campground will be located in the infield.

Dream keeps rollin' on

Sunday, March 09, 2008MIKE BOLTONNews staff writer

OXFORD --

Asteady stream of motor homes and travel trailers with tags from states such as Oregon, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee was exiting Interstate 20 and pulling into the four-acre parking lot of the $8.1 million Dandy RV Superstore.

As Jim Cooley watched from his second-story office window overlooking the lot, he couldn't help but smile.

His idea of a creating a destination for current and potential owners of recreational vehicles has piqued the interest of the thousands of motorists who pass by this new, gigantic facility just off exit 188 on I-20 each day.

It also has piqued the interest of a curious RV industry that wants to see how such a facility that is common in locales such as California and Las Vegas will play in Alabama. Although open less than a year, Cooley's bold venture already has landed him on the cover of the December issue of "RV Pro," a bible of the industry.

The 82,000-square-foot facility on 28 acres next to I-20 can't be ignored by anyone who drives by. In case the more than 400 motor homes and travel trailers on site don't catch a motorist's eye, the gigantic $300,000 message board alongside the interstate will.

The Dandy RV Superstore is a one-stop Wal-Mart of sorts for the RV crowd. It features a 15,500-square-foot Camping World store that that has every gadget imaginable for RV owners.

"It is to RV owners what Bass Pro Shops is to fishermen," Cooley said. "RV owners love the place."

It also houses a 15,000-square-foot recreational vehicle showroom where motor homes and travel trailers are on display; a 40-bay garage where RVs are repaired; and an RV parts warehouse. It has a 54-foot-long paint booth where wrecked RVs can be repaired and painted.

Cooley said construction will begin in the next 30 days on an adjacent $3.1 million, 145-pad KOA campground that will have a swimming pool, putting greens, permanently anchored RVs for rent and four log cabins for rent.

Creating such an RV showplace was 32 years in the making, Cooley said. Before opening in March, Dandy RV spent 22 years as a highly visible fixture just off I-59 in East Lake. In 2006 a fire that started in a customer's RV destroyed much of that facility. Cooley's answer was to finally close down that location and a similar one on I-65 near Clanton and build his dream RV mega-center.

Not being one to brag on his accomplishments, Cooley prefers to laugh about his past rather than talk about the present.

"When I got out of high school I'd get the classifieds out of The Birmingham News looking for RVs for sale and I'd ride around all over Birmingham looking in yards for RVs that might be for sale," he said, laughing. "I'd take them to my house and fix them up and sell them out of the front yard. From 1976 to 1984, I was in the RV fix-`em-up business."

Cooley admits his early years in the RV business were rather crude. He once opened an RV shop near Center Point that had no running water. He put a pump in a nearby creek and washed with creek water the RVs that were for sale.

The Leeds High School graduate says staying focused on a dream is what has led to the creation of the state's largest RV mega-center, but it was customer service that made it possible.

"I was raised in a trailer park in Leeds," he said. "I wanted something else for my life. I was a football fan like everybody else but I didn't worship people like Bear Bryant and Joe Namath.

"I looked up to people like (Wal-Mart founder) Sam Walton. I read everything I could about successful businessmen and how they did business. What I learned is that people like that really have a very simple business philosophy and it is basically this: pay your bills and do the right thing.

"I'll be honest with you. When you sell 1,200 RVs a year like we do, you're going to have two or three lemons in there. We're in the business of selling people their dreams and you've got to make it right. If there's a gray area somewhere, side with the customer. That's not some great idea I came up with. I'm just copying some of the best businesspeople in the world."

Cooley and his wife, Tammie, talked about possibly retiring following the fire at his East Lake facility in 2006 but their dreams wouldn't allow it. He says his inspiration came from his wife.

"I'm the one that wants to go for things and my wife is the cautious one, but this time it was just the opposite," he said. "We had our RV store in East Lake paid for and the one we had on I-65 (near Clanton) paid for and I'm thinking why in the world would I want to build an $8 million place? She said because if I didn't, we'd never be happy."

Cooley says the homework he did before building Dandy RV Superstore was intense. It included him studying similar facilities from California to Maine.

"I knew we had to be highly visible from an interstate but alone that wasn't enough," he said. "People said you need to be at an exit where there is a Cracker Barrel, a Honda dealership, a Toyota dealership and a Harley-Davidson dealership, things like that. Places that draw people off the interstate.

"That's a pretty tall order but that's just what we found here. We have all of those things here at the same exit."

Cooley said an understanding of how RV people think also helped.

"I really didn't worry about losing the customer base we had already established in Birmingham or Clanton because so many times I had seen people drive all the way from Cullman or Tuscaloosa to save $8 on a part if they like you.

"We're already getting people driving here from Atlanta and Tennessee to do business with us."

Local News

RV park planned for Anniston By Dan Whisenhunt Star Staff Writer 12-06-2007

Jim 'Dandy' Cooley, owner of Dandy RV, leafs through a KOA brochure Wednesday. Behind him in the tree line is the location of the proposed campground, which is adjacent to Cooley's dealership. Photo: Kevin Qualls/The Anniston Star Every car whizzing by on Interstate 20 sounds like a cash register ringing in the ears of Jim "Dandy" Cooley. Cooley, owner of the Dandy RV Superstore in Oxford, plans to lure those customers in with some new bait — a Kampgrounds of America RV Park. The park, planned for September 2008, technically will be located in Anniston on property near the store. Everything about it will be special, Cooley said. Aside from being the second KOA in Alabama (the other one is in Gulf Shores), it will be the only one in the U.S. with an RV dealership and a Camping World store. "It's simple," Cooley said about his decision to move forward with the project. "Nobody had anything like this in the Southeast." From a business standpoint, Dandy RV stands at an intersection of fortunate circumstances. The interstate and businesses in the Oxford Exchange nearby is one draw. The traffic going back and forth between Atlanta and Birmingham like ping-pong balls is another. Throw in the Talladega Superspeedway on race weekends and Mt. Cheaha, and the 22-acre RV park with 185 lots stands to do well, Cooley said. "It's a $3.3- to $3.4-million project by the time we get finished with it," he said. Patt Hittmeier, vice president of system development for KOA, said the company is excited about its latest franchise customer. "When you group all those transient-type retail centers together it really gravitates people to that location, so the location is a great one," Hittemeier said. "We also feel really good about Jim Cooley. He's proven himself capable of putting together a large development." Cooley says when the park is completed, he will have invested $11 million in Calhoun County. Both of his stores employ around 110 people. The KOA will add another 15 to 16 jobs, he said. When Cooley goes looking for evidence his idea will work, he finds the proof in his parking lot. On Wednesday, Herb and Darlene Pollard, a couple of retirees from Idaho exploring America in an RV, did some tune-ups outside the store. Somewhere on their journey on the back roads of the South, a tree branch damaged a cover keeping rainwater from their refrigerator's cooling coils. Cooley's Camping World store drew them in. A KOA would keep them there for a night, they said. They've stayed at five KOA's around the country so far. "We didn't discover the damage until this morning," Darlene said. "Having a campground next to a Camping World would've been a life saver."