A Detroit company will demolish the historic Willow Run bomber plant and build a test track and research center for connected vehicles, the trust managing former General Motors properties said today.
Devon Industrial Group won a bid to knock down the 5 million-square-foot factory and Detroit-based Walbridge Development LLC plans to develop the site into an advanced vehicle research center.
The Revitalizing Automotive Communities Environmental Response (RACER) trust, which controls property left behind in GM’s 2009 bankruptcy, said the demolition process would take about a year.
The trust also plans to give a portion of the 332-acre property to the Wayne County Airport Authority to improve the Willow Run Airport’s ability to use its runway.
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details were not immediately available. The trust said Devon Industrial Group is subcontracting with Bloomfield-based MCM Management to demolish the idle factory.
The deal won’t disrupt a previously announced bid by the nearby Yankee Air Museum, which wants to acquire a 175,000-square-foot section of the plant to renovate. Under terms of a previously announced deal with the trust, the museum must raise $5 million by Oct. 1 to prove its plan is feasible.
The R&D center and test track would be used by automakers, suppliers and other technology companies. Automakers are testing a variety of semi-autonomous vehicles that can communicate with other vehicles to reduce or avoid accidents.
Ypsilanti Township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo said she supports the project.
“Finding a buyer and new use for Willow Run has been one of RACER’s highest priorities,” RACER administrative trustee Elliott Laws said in a statement.
After demolition, Walbridge would acquire the property, RACER said.
The move comes after Ann Arbor SPARK ran a marketing campaign designed to highlight the property’s redevelopment as a hub of automotive innovation.
Officials said it’s too early to say how many jobs the project could create. It was also not clear whether Walbridge would run the facility. RACER will continue to manage the site’s $36-million environmental cleanup, which is funded by the U.S. government and the post-bankruptcy assets of old GM.
“The Willow Run property is ideal for the type of development we envision, one that leverages the region’s assets — both talent and technology,” Walbridge business development director John Rakolta III said in a statement.
The Free Press first reported in May that the trust expected to demolish the property after failing for two years to lure credible proposals to redevelop the building.
Henry Ford built the factory in 1941 to build B24 bombers for the U.S. military. Designed by Albert Kahn, it once employed 42,000 people at the peak of World War II. One of the women who inspired the government’s Rosie the Riveter propaganda image worked at the plant.
In the 1950s, GM acquired the property where it made more than 80 million transmissions until it closed in December 2010.
GM had some 14,000 employees at the property in the 1970s, but that dwindled to about 1,300 when GM announced in June 2009 that the factory would close.
