AOK RVs Manager Monty King said the dealership’s most-recent expansion was driven by a need to accommodate service technicians.
The Gravois Mills dealership at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks has been adding service technicians to its staff and needed more bays. “We outgrew the service building we have now,” King said.
The AOK RVs expansion includes an RV service and pre-delivery inspection center, which will be completed this spring. The dealership will have 29 service bays, which it said will make it among the largest RV service centers in the Midwest.
AOK RVs also is adding a new customer RV park with full hook-ups and 50-amp and 30-amp service. The park will accommodate those picking up new campers or consumers getting repairs who have to stay more than a day. “If they are coming in from a couple hours away, they will not have to make two trips,” King said. The park will be on AOK RVs’ lot, next to the main office and service center.
AOK RVs also plans to expand outside its dealership lot with its Santa Fe Springs RV Park campground at Lake of the Ozarks. “We are seeing an increase of RV resorts where people take their campers and leave them there all year,” King said. The dealership is developing 1,000 feet of lakefront campgrounds so RVers can park and have their own lake house, King said, rather than driving across the country.
Though AOK RVs started planning its most-recent expansion in 2018, the company had a sales downtick that year and put the project on hold. This expansion follows the dealership’s 2015 one, when they bought 8 acres and added five service bays after operating out of less than a single acre.
Monty and Vicki King took over the dealership in 2006 when it was a 1.4-acre, consignment-only lot. Now, AOK RVs carries more than 30 new RV brands on its 22 acres.
Though the company expanded to accommodate an increase in service technicians, King said AOK RVs plans to hire more techs, office and grounds workers, and customer service personnel. For more information, call AOK RVs at 573-374-8113.
