Saratoga Springs auto dealer pays $21.3M for future Audi Hawthorne site

A Hawthorne property being redeveloped as an Audi dealership by a Danbury auto dealer has been sold to an affiliate of New Country Motor Car Group Inc., a Saratoga Springs-based dealer in Audi and other luxury import cars with apparent plans to expand its suburban metro showrooms into Westchester from Fairfield and Rockland counties.

The property at 151 Saw Mill River Road, where Audi Hawthorne is slated to open this summer on the former site of a multiplex cinema, sold for approximately $21.3 million, according to a deed filed this month in the Westchester County Clerk”™s Office.

Joshua J. Weeks, dealer principal of Audi Danbury, in late 2015 paid $9.6 million for the property on Route 9A in the town of Mount Pleasant, when it was the site of the All Westchester Saw Mill Multiplex Cinemas.

Closed in early 2016, the National Amusements cinema complex was razed and construction began last July on a 71,000-square-foot, two-story auto dealership. The massive facility now under construction will include a full-service car wash and is expected to employ 60 people.

The buyer, Country Realty Co., lists the same office address as the Saratoga Springs headquarters of New Country Motor Car Group. New Country, owned by Michael Cantanucci, operates Audi, Lexus, Porsche and Toyota franchises in Greenwich and Westport and BMW, Ferrari and Maserati dealerships in Spring Valley.

Weeks did not respond to a call for comment on the sale. Cantanucci could not be reached for comment.