Cars sit on the Saturn of Lancaster lot earlier this month.
Early this month, facing an inevitable closing, Saturn of Lancaster's owner made a promise to its workers.
John Sutliff pledged to give them at least two weeks' notice of the shutdown.
Friday he walked into the once-bustling store and kept his word.
He told the Manheim Pike and Route 283 dealership's employees that it will close in two weeks, on Nov. 6.
"It was the toughest thing I've ever had to do in my professional career," said Sutliff.
The 18-year-old Lancaster store will be the first of Sutliff's five Saturn locations to close.
The day before delivering the news to his 27 employees here, Sutliff told this newspaper that the store would close by the end of the year.
In that interview, though, Sutliff hinted that the shutdown might occur much sooner than Dec. 31.
Monday the car dealer said the closing will come quickly for two reasons.
First, the facility continues to lose money. "We want to stop the bleeding as soon as we can," Sutliff said.
Second, his previously announced plan to sell the site to an unidentified dealer "is progressing very fast."
Sutliff said his effort to place the store's employees at his other dealerships is ongoing. To date, he has found new jobs for eight of the Lancaster workers.
The fate of all 350 Saturn dealerships nationwide was sealed Sept. 30, when General Motors said it will stop making the cars in the wake of a failed effort to sell the brand.
GM said at the time that the dealerships would close by October 2010, if not sooner.
Sutliff recalled that his Saturn stores here and in York, Mechanicsburg, State College and Harrisburg had been "wildly successful" until recent years, when the recession gutted sales.
"It's really a shame to be finishing up this way," he said. "But this is the hand we were dealt. Life must go on."