Even while Toyota of Brookhaven gets a new look, the dealership is open for business as usual.

The dealership on Brookway Boulevard has been undergoing some major renovations for the past three months and work will continue at least into October. They’re open, said General Manager Prentiss Smith, but that’s not always clear to customers.

“I went to the bank a few weeks ago and one of the tellers asked when we were going to reopen,” Smith said. “’They said, ‘I see all the heavy work going on; I just assumed y’all shut it down until it was done.’ So I’ve got to fight that perception for the next six and a half months. It’s a learning experience. I’ll be happy when it’s over. I think our customers and employees will be, too.”

Despite the extra challenges, it was time for a change at the dealership. Smith said the building  wasn’t the “newest and flashiest,” but staff made it work.

“We loved our previous building because it fit our scrappy nature,” Smith said. “But now it’s going to be nice to have new and flashy and comfortable, and Wi-Fi that works, and air conditioning that works. So I’m very excited. It’s going to be nice for everybody around.”

Smith said the dealership will enjoy a more open design.

“Before we had a very closed off environment,” he said. “The place where the sales consultants were that customers would go in when working a car deal were the old-school, glassed-in, closed off kind of offices. Everything’s going to be a lot more open.”

Smith said he wants a visit to Toyota of Brookhaven to be an experience. They’ll have charging stations for electronic devices, flat screen TVs in both service and sales buildings and areas where customers can listen to music or get away from the noise.

Construction began in February, and work so far has gone at a steady pace.

“With old construction like we had, there’s always things you haven’t accounted for that you have to fix,” Smith said. “A pipe’s laid a certain way that should have been a different way. Things are different from when this business was first built two decades ago.”

Smith said business for Toyota of Brookhaven, and the rest of the automobile industry, has been good — but not without its difficulties.

“I think my business as a whole in most of the area around here really saw a rough time in the fall because of what was going on in the oil industry,” he said. “Everything in this town feeds off each other.”

Despite these difficulties, 2015 was their best year ever, he said. He expects technology to play an important role in the auto industry over the next several years with the introduction of driverless cars that can sense its environment and navigate without human input.

“The technology part of it is what we have to embrace,” Smith said. “There’s the old mindset that what we have is good so why do we have to mess with it. The reason there’s interest in autonomous vehicles or electric vehicles is because that’s what people want.

“There’s a lot that can be said about Toyota — some good and some bad — but nobody can doubt their place when it comes to advancement in technology in vehicles. And I think you’ll see that same trait continue.”