Three Seaside auto dealerships are closing, spelling peril for jobs and tax revenue.

Amid declining profit margins for dealerships across the nation and a drop in sales for some brands, three major car dealerships in Seaside are set to go out of business on June 20.

The city’s Chevrolet, Cadillac and Hyundai dealerships, which are all owned by a company based in Texas, employ about 60 people, according to a manager who declined to be identified because he had been instructed not to talk to the media.

“They are putting 60 people out of work,” the manager says. “Years of loyalty mean nothing.”

Local taxes collected on car sales in Seaside reached $4.4 million in the last fiscal year, representing the largest source of revenue for the city, according to City Manager Craig Malin. The city included the three closing dealerships on its list of the top 25 sales tax producers for 2018.

The news comes as City Council begins its review of the budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year. A $2.5 million operating deficit is anticipated, but the city expects to offset it with a one-time $3.3 million infusion from the sale of land for the Seaside Resort project.

Some Seaside officials and business leaders are projecting confidence that the dealerships will quickly reopen under new ownership.

“If they were to close for a long time, that would be devastating for Seaside,” says Jim Vossen, general manager of the Chambers of Commerce for Seaside, Sand City, Del Rey Oaks and Monterey. “I have a funny feeling it will work out.”

Automotive industry executives have already expressed their interest in taking over the shuttered dealers, says Gloria Stearns, Seaside’s economic development manager.

“We are already getting interest in the space so I suspect it won’t stay vacant for long,” she says. “It’s a temporary interruption.”

General Motors, which is the parent company of both Chevrolet and Cadillac, suffered a 4.9-percent drop in sales for the first five months of the year, according to Automotive News.Meanwhile, Hyundai sales across the nation are slightly up.

The storied Butts Motors company founded and owned the three dealerships in Seaside until 2014 when the Butts family sold their interest to the Texas firm.

News of the dealerships’ closure comes months after the departure of Peter Sercia, who ran them on behalf of the owner. He is now the general sales manager of the Subaru dealership in Bend, Oregon. Sercia declined to talk with the Weekly but court records reveal that he left amid a compensation dispute with the owner.