I was reading the paper today, and I think I'm starting to see why the township and city are pissed. It seems like there are some rumblings that GM doesn't plan to do anything with the sites anytime soon, which is contrary to other rumors that they were taking these things down so fast to get the city and township involved in redevelopment. It seems that they are going to do like they did in Flint and Detroit and simply gravel over the land, and leave it. I'm starting to get a little worried.
At the very least GM could put out an RFP, just for the off chance someone responds. Theres no excuse to hoard the property if someone out there could be willing to redevelop it.
It's too bad we're not responsible enough of adults who can clean up a piece of property when we're done with it. It seems like the city (or maybe state) should create laws about how the landscape is left when a company is done using it. It's not like they've gone out of business--they have money. Of course, businesses would then build elsewhere and we'd have less jobs than we do now. ....if only we could be responsible....
In this case I'm talking specifically about the Craft Centre and the Lansing Metal Fabrication plant right across the street, both of which are in Lansing Township. Lansing Township already has written into their planning philosophy what should be left (or not be left) when a property is demolished, which is exactly why they keep tabling GM's request for a permit because they aren't meeting the township's more stringent standards for demolition.
So, I was doing some research to find out exactly how large the sites for Lansing Car Assembly were, and got back more than I asked for. I wrote the planning department and was told that LCA Plant #1 (Downtown) is being kept by GM for future auto development, development which they've not even revealed to the city. This was a huge surprise for me to hear. I was sure they were going to sell off the site. The Verlinden site sounds like it's going to be sold off.
BTW, I HATE that the city didn't get GM to grass over the Plant #1 site. Going over the MLK bridge looks like there's a moonscape right next to the river.
...On another note there's tons of activity at the Ultium battery plant site, the news article a couple months ago said they expected steel to go up in August and I don't doubt that they're on track for that given the amount of work going on.
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BTW, I HATE that the city didn't get GM to grass over the Plant #1 site. Going over the MLK bridge looks like there's a moonscape right next to the river.
This could be sort of interesting, an industry news magazine is reporting that the upcoming electric Corvette will be produced at the Grand River plant. If true it would be very promising for that plant and I think it bodes well for how GM feels about their Lansing operations.
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2022/07/corvette-ev-could-be-built-at-gm-lansing-grand-river-plant/
...On another note there's tons of activity at the Ultium battery plant site, the news article a couple months ago said they expected steel to go up in August and I don't doubt that they're on track for that given the amount of work going on.