What to do, what to do? Unfortunately there are a lot of auto plants out there with not a lot going on in them. However, that might not be the case for long. Across the country, and especially here in Southeast Michigan, these auto plants are shifting gears and changing industry.
Except:
Ford's shuttered Wixom, Mich., plant is under an agreement in
principle to be sold for an undisclosed price to a joint venture between
Clairvoyant Energy and Xtreme Power, which will respectively
manufacture solar panels and large-scale power systems on the 320-acre
site. In the meantime, the University of Delaware last year paid about
$24.3 million for a 272-acre site in Newark, Del., formerly occupied by a
Chrysler assembly plant.
The Norfolk site, where Ford had manufactured everything from pickups
to the company's signature Model T back in the 1920s, is one of about
55 auto-related manufacturing plants that have been closed or are set to
close since 2005 in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Center for
Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
More closures are expected in the auto industry, and the challenges
facing efforts to reuse the sites are many: Some of the plants are too
large for many other kinds of manufacturing, the potential environmental
cleanup costs can be daunting, and many manufacturers of other goods
that might have considered reusing such sites have looked to cut costs
by relocating outside the U.S. Most of the closed auto plants are likely
to sit vacant unless their location gives them an edge. "It's location,
location, location," says David Cole, of the Center for Automotive
Research. "People are not waiting on line to buy old auto plants." That
is because many plants are in battered industrial areas in the Midwest,
where the auto industry's retrenchment has left a surplus of such
properties.
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