After seven years of near vacancy, the old building is now seeing new life as Havasu’s former Hastings Entertainment location prepares to reopen this year under new business.
Hastings operated in Havasu for about 20 years, but in 2016 the popular movie rental and bookstore chain closed nationwide. But after purchasing the property in 2020, new owner and North Carolina resident Robbie Gordon is almost ready to open a new restaurant and UTV showroom at the location.
Advertisements still hung in movie poster frames inside the home of the former Hastings location on Thursday. , advertised the place as a place to have coffee and buy and trade used DVDs. Beneath the dusty smiling posters, something new was being created. Or rather, various things.
The building will now be home to Gordon and business partner Todd Romano’s new business, Speed UTV. For the past two years, the building has been closed to the public as a test facility for Gordon’s new line of fully customized and bespoke off-highway vehicles. The first shipment of these vehicles arrived at the facility on Wednesday, Gordon said. This week, Speed employees began putting the finishing touches on these vehicles at the soon-to-be-new-owner facility.
Shops are closed but business is booming
Speed UTV’s new home will remain closed as workers continue to modify new vehicles at the facility, and plans are still underway to completely refurbish the building’s interior and exterior façades.
“I started this company and bought the building about two years ago,” says Godron. “The house was vacant for about three years before that. The building required a lot of work and we knew we were taking risks…but the location is perfect for us.”
The place may not be open yet, but business is booming.
“We started Speed UTV in 2019 as a concept,” Gordon said Thursday. “We have real production cars in house, not January 2023. In the process, like Tesla, we brought these cars to market and allowed people to pre-order their cars… And we’ve had a ton of pre-orders.”
Gordon said factories in Vietnam, China and Mexico are ready to produce as many as 1,500 vehicles a month to meet expected demand. As of this week, according to Gordon, as many as 18,000 of his UTVs have already been pre-purchased through his Speed UTV and off-highway vehicle dealers nationwide.
“We sold four cars today alone,” Gordon said Thursday. “I told them their car he wouldn’t have for nine months…that’s how far behind I am from the pre-order.”
According to Gordon, there is still a lot of work to do before the building is ready for its grand opening.
“It’s going to take a lot of work,” Gordon said Thursday. “It’s nowhere near where I want it to be. Luckily, we now have lighting and air conditioning. We’ve been using the building as a test facility for the past two years, and now it’s time to get serious.”
Gordon said the building will have a glass exterior, a sports bar and restaurant, showrooms, and a complete interior renovation when completed.
“We see changes here week to week,” Gordon said. “But the grand opening? It would be nice to have it open by the end of May. I have all the permits and everything has been brought in and just started moving in the kitchen.”
And Gordon says both the city and the Lake Havasu City Partnership for Economic Development have done amazing things to accommodate his efforts.
“Of course, the area gets a lot of tourists, not just a lot of locals, but a lot of people from out of state who come to town. I think you can add one layer.”
Gordon says PED Chairman James Gray and Lake Havasu City Mayor Cal Sheehy have done amazing things to help him in the process of acquiring and developing his business in Havasu.
“James was great, Cal was great…everything was good,” Gordon said. “I have big plans for this city.”
a lifetime in the industry
Not all newcomers make it in the auto industry right away, but a little bit of name recognition is fine. For lovers of racing and off-highway his sport, Gordon may be a household name.
Gordon has won the Baja 1000 three times and the Baja 500 four times. He has reportedly raced both the Indianapolis 500 in Charlotte, North Carolina on the same day and the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600.
After decades of racing both on and off road, Gordon made the transition from driving race cars to building them. Gordon, in 2013 he was responsible for designing his Traxxas Series Speed Energy Stadium Super track. He is also responsible for developing the four-seater He RZR He Off-Highway vehicle and He Textron/Arctic Cat Wildcat XX.
“I decided to create my own business and went all in,” Gordon said.
When Gordon made his name in the off-highway vehicle design and racing industry, business partner Todd Romano ran DragonFire Racing, one of the world’s largest distributors of off-highway vehicle accessories.
According to Romano, the two worked together to design the Wildcat XX. Romano says the design was commissioned by Arctic Cat, but was abandoned when Textron bought the company.
Romano says it recently won a $47 million federal lawsuit against Textron/Arctic Cat when the newly combined company tried to cancel its acquisition of Romano and Gordon services.
Now Romano and Gordon hope to market their designs under their own brand.
“Speed UTVs are all about higher standards of what we want to offer our customers,” said Romano. is the fruit of countless hours.Two years ago, we have been in this industry for so many years, and today there are 16,000 to 17,000 of these cars being built.”
