From auto rental to property ownership: Garston Grant’s Brac businesses grow

Garston Grant on the future site of CB Motors.

Monday,  November  21, 2005

Garston Grant sees a new beginning for Cayman Brac, and he is gearing up his family businesses accordingly.

As the owner of one of two gas station on the Island, and the owner of a car rental business, a new business development and several rental houses, he is in a good position to see that things are happening, and he is preparing to make sizable investments to take advantage of the momentum building on the Brac.

Unlike the gas stations on Grand Cayman which are leased, Mr Grant owns CB Motors, a business he bought in 1984 after retiring from a long career at sea.

Since Hurricane Ivan, he said they have seen an increase in sales from under 500 gallons per day to an average of 900 gallons per day.
When he first bought the station, they sold an average of 1,500 gallons per week, a figure than has gradually increased to 6,000 per week over the years.

The station, which now sells Texaco gas, diesel and lube oil, was built 50 years ago and is beginning to look its age. Mr Grant is therefore building a brand new modern gas station at the same location, a project he intends to start early in 2006.

The new station will be approximately 5,000 square feet, much bigger than the present one, and he will expand his retail department, where he already sells a range of car parts and car products, snacks and miscellaneous items, such as bicycles.

Mr Grant has recently completed a new business centre, Avi-Star Building, at the entrance to the Gerrard Smith Airport.

All the spots were snapped up by new businesses blossoming on Cayman Brac, and it now houses a new Chinese restaurant, a beauty salon, a beauty supply and music store, and an office supply shop.

Initially, he moved his rental car company, CB Rent-a-Car, to this location, but he is now moving it back to the renovated old location nearer the airport, thus opening up another location for a new office or store.

However, the demand has been such that he is already adding an addition to the Avi-Star Building.

The rental car business is run by his eldest son, Todd Grant, and is very busy, especially at the weekends, when often all thirty-six Honda Civic Sedan cars and ten Mitsubishi SUVs are rented out.

Mr Garston Grant said that they are expanding the fleet to meet the demand and will have four more cars by Christmas. Sometimes, especially when there is a big event on the Island, they have to turn people away, he said.

There has been a steady increase in both long-term rentals by people who have a second home on the Brac and by tourists staying at the hotels, he noted.

Mr Grant also has an auto repair shop, West End Auto, run by his other son Troy, where business is getting busier as more and more cars are imported to Cayman Brac.

Garston Grant sees blue skies for business on this Island. When the Huntington Medical School opens, as it aims to do in April, he believes that most of the students will want to have a car and when friends and relatives visit them on the Brac, they will, of course, want to rent a vehicle.
“The school is going to boost the economy here and get money circulating around the island,” he predicted.

“The Brac is going to attract an upscale market of retirees from the US and Grand Cayman who want to live here all or part of the time. Cayman Brac is ready and has a good infrastructure. We would welcome the right caliber of people.

“This is a good place. It’s safe sand tranquil, things that are worth a lot of money,” he noted. Mr Grant is a strong supporter of the Lost City of Atlantis, a huge underwater sculpture that is becoming a new dive site and artificial reef, located off the north coast of the Brac.

In fact, CB Rent-a-Car is running a special five percent discount through an advertisement in Cayman Net News to everyone who comes to the Brac to dive Atlantis.

Looking to the future, Mr Grant has purchased property on the Bluff. This will either become a housing development or a new business centre later on.

As well as a steady rise in the flow of customers in all his businesses, Mr Grant noted that, in many ways, it has become easier to run a business here on Cayman Brac.

“In the beginning, we had our own delivery truck to run gas, which had to be pumped straight from the barge to the truck. The truck only held 1,000 gallons and we would work all night sometimes to fill the storage tanks,” he recalled.

A purchase of a bigger 5,000-gallon truck made things easier, but when the weather was rough, there was a lot of panic buying by customers on the island. Now Texaco has a plant with adequate storage facilities for Cayman Brac.

Mr Grant spent eighteen years at sea, starting at the bottom of the ladder as a wiper in the engine room. He rose to Chief Engineer, sailing on the 225,000 tonne Universe Kuwait at the peak of his career.

Applying himself to his career at sea as he now does to his business interests, he studied for his engineer’s qualifications by himself and rose fast through the ranks as he passed his exams.

He sailed as Chief Engineer with an unlimited license for ten years before retiring from the sea. As an officer, he was permitted to bring his wife with him for part of the year, and Hedy Grant would accompany her husband for three months of the year as he sailed around the world.

“She misses it more than I do,” he admitted. But now Mr Grant sees opportunities rising on his home Island of Cayman Brac.

“As the opportunities come up, I’m ready and able to move along with it,” he said.

   Back...