DETROIT – Fiat Chrysler is making a transformative investment in the city of Detroit and beyond.
On Tuesday, company officials, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced a new assembly plant will be built on Detroit's east side.
Plans involve permanently closing off a portion of St. Jean right next to the Jefferson North Plant, and parts of that land aren't even owned yet by the city.
"This is the way the city of Detroit fights unemployment and poverty," Duggan said.
The mayor reached out to Fiat Chrysler a year ago and offered to work on pulling together 200 acres of land around the Mack Engine Plant and Jefferson North Plant to do more work.
The results blossomed into something few expected. More than $1.5 billion will be spent to build a new assembly plant merging with the Mack Engine Plant. It will stop making engines and instead build more Jeep Grand Cherokees and three-seat Jeep SUVs, creating 4,000 jobs.
Another $900 million will go into the Jefferson North Plant for further expansion, creating another 1,000 jobs.
Officials said nobody will be displaced from their homes, but St. Jean will be closed from Kercheval Avenue to East Warren Avenue, nearly 2 miles of roadway melding into the plant infrastructure.
The company needs people to sell to the city in just 60 days. The Moroun family owns some of the land near the plants. They and many other land owners will be negotiating, but if one decided not to play ball and hold out for big money, there's no contingency plan.