By Steve McLinden
In late 2014, after a decade of operating his Arlington, Texas, body shop in a cramped, poorly-lit, leased building on West Division Street that he shared with a mechanic, Khalil Issa toured a spacious 10,000-square-foot industrial facility just a couple miles down Division at 320 Dixon Lane.
Issa, a 20-year veteran of the collision-repair business, instantly sensed the building would become the new home of his Arlington Auto Center (AAC) collision shop. That is, if the building owner offered a favorable price.
He did. Negotiations done and the deal closed, Issa finally fulfilled his long-time dream of owning his own shop building, and he began plotting his move. He hired a contractor to convert the new building, a former furniture-assembly plant, into a full-fledged body shop, with completion expected in February 2015.
But February passed and so did March and April. The contractor, who was tasked to install several garage doors, new lighting and other features, plus build an office where there hadn’t previously been one, had fallen woefully behind. That jeopardized Issa’s plans to coordinate the move.
His old building, which once housed Vandergriff Honda body shop, was to be demolished soon to make way for a new office building, and it looked like Issa would be an auto-repair man without a building. The property sits in the shadow of the new AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, and the city has encouraged the upgrade of commercial properties on this weathered stretch of Division Street. Fortunately for Issa, the office deal fell through, and AAC was allowed to stay in the old shop on a month-to-month lease.
Finally, $120,000 in retrofits later, the fresh digs were finally ready for occupancy in mid-June 2015, and the plan was to move over one weekend. But that chore was to be done without its founder, it turns out. Issa had to travel out of town suddenly to tend to his seriously-ill mother, who has since passed away. The shop staff managed admirably and got the place operational by Monday, Issa recalled.
Most of the equipment he had accumulated made the move, except for his old paint booth. For his new shop space, Issa instead invested in a state-of-the-art, downdraft paint booth with computerized controls by Global Finishing Solutions.
Since the move, AAC has ramped up business at the new facility, which handles mostly insurance jobs and classic restorations, in part due to better visibility.
“The other place was outmoded and hard to see, and people who did see it from the street thought it was still a dealership building,” Issa said. “Plus I wasn’t about to invest a bunch of money in a place I don’t own.”
Today, the shop staff of eight is enjoying the extra elbow room and increased storage, Issa said. What’s more, he also got a lot in the deal that has room for 70 vehicles, a covered lot that was at least half full when the enormous March hail storm struck last year.
“But thanks to that [covering], nothing was damaged except for one little hail ding on one car,” he said.
The storm, which ravaged much of Arlington and neighboring Kennedale, brought in lots of extra work, plus four traveling paintless-dent specialists. One came in from Louisiana, another from Illinois and a third from Colorado. They have since moved on.
“But man, we were slammed for months — just slammed,” Issa said.
Son Mohamad wants to take over the operation with his brother when his dad retires, which probably won’t be anytime soon, said the 54-year-old Issa.
“They got mad when I talked about selling,” said the senior Issa, who suffered a minor stroke last year that left him with one numb hand. Feeling in the hand has since returned, he said. “I just take blood thinners, and I am fine — and feel fine.”
The owner meets all customers personally, inspects every vehicle and directly turns over the keys to patrons when the job’s finished. His son helps with administrative duties and will soon assist with estimating duties.
The shop routinely has Corvettes, Vipers, Lamborghinis and classic Mustangs under repair and restoration. On a Tuesday morning in mid-January, the shop had more than a dozen vehicles under roof, including a 1968 Mustang Fastback. The shop can fabricate parts in many cases and recently saved one Viper owner $3,300 by building a $4,000 bumper for $700.
AAC is not a direct repair program (DRP) shop but gets plenty of industry references and has a strong relationship with insurers and adjusters, the owner said. But there are challenges. Issa said material costs have at least doubled in the last decade and continue to rise, he said.
Issa is also looking for two additional body men, a tough task in a market where just about any competent, available body person gets snapped up instantly, he said. “I talked with one earlier this morning who said business had really fallen off where he is currently, so that’s promising,” Issa said. “He said he’ll need to give at least a week’s notice, but whether we actually see him back is another question.”
Issa was born in Jerusalem and would later move to Kuwait. He came to the states in 1980 where he became an American citizen and earned his engineering degree. Issa returned to Kuwait to work in 1988. While his trade flourished, he soon found himself persona non grata when Iraq under Saddam Hussein commanded that troops take over the oil-rich country. Issa was forced into hiding, because he was an American citizen. He fled the country by evacuating through the American embassy.
In the states, Issa worked for two well-known national restaurant chains before beginning his full-time body-shop career in July 1997, taking over the Voss Paint & Body operation on nearby North Street, named for its long-departed founder.
Issa resides in Bedford and would like to open a second shop in neighboring Euless at some point in the next few years. Issa also plans to expand the current building by at least five bays, he said.
Besides his co-worker son, who will be traveling to Houston in the coming weeks for painter certification, Issa has two other grown children, one a graphic designer who graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington and another, a son at the University of North Texas in Denton.
Issa’s children have helped their dad improve his shop’s presence on social media, creating a Facebook page last year and establishing an affiliation with Texas Imports Today, a Texas-based import-car enthusiast group that’s part of the Texas Auto Society, which also has a Facebook page.
Incidentally, Issa’s old shop building on Division is still standing and vacant after the would-be buyer pulled out of the office deal. Thinking the place would be demolished, the old landlord gave Issa two industrial-sized heaters when he left for the new space.
“That saved us a huge expense,” he said. •
