PACKARD PLANT

‘Every day the Packard Plant sits here in this state is a day this neighborhood cannot move forward,’ Mayor Duggan said

Nearly two years ago, Detroit began demolishing homes that were causing problems for neighbors.

The city of Detroit has started demolition on a portion of the iconic -- and infamous -- Packard plant, after years of court hearings and deadlines.

DETROIT -- Demolition of portions of the historic Packard Plant are expected to begin Thursday, nine years after a developer bought the property but failed to redevelop it as promised. According to WXYZ-Detroit, the demolition of the former automotive plant is being paid for by the City of Detroit, despite the property being owned by Peruvian developer Fernando Palazuelo. The Packard Plant was purchased by Palazuelo in 2013 for $400,000 and at the time he said he had plans of turning the property into a mixed use development with commercial and residential spaces. Palazuelo has also failed to show up to court proceedings involving the property, according to WXYZ, leading the city to take control over the future of the property. The plant was built in the early 1900s and automobiles were built at the facility until the 1950s.

In the early 1900s, the Packard Plan became a proud symbol of Detroit’s industrial rise as it churned out luxury automobiles and decent wages to thousand of workers

Mahalie Wilson lives in the shadow of Detroit's massive and vacant former Packard auto plant and says she has learned to just “deal with” her foreboding brick neighbor.

LANSING, MI — Remediation projects to clean up polluted properties in Flint, Jackson, Muskegon and elsewhere around Michigan will benefit from $4 million in brownfield grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The city of Jackson will use $500,000 to conduct 10 site assessments and develop cleanup plans for vacant stores, factories and gas stations in the city’s southside neighborhood. The Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce Foundation will use $500,000 to conduct site assessments and develop cleanup plans in the Shoreline-Downtown area and the along Heights Broadway Avenue Corridor. Oceana County will use $300,000 to conduct 24 site assessments and develop cleanup plans in the city of Hart and villages of Shelby and Rothbury. Targeted sites include a former gas station, former diesel generation electric plant, a former dry cleaner, and a former steel foundry.

A critical deadline was missed Thursday in the court-determined process to demolish the Packard Plant in Detroit, which has become an eyesore.

A judge has ordered the demolition of the deteriorating Packard auto plant in Detroit, finding that it had become a public nuisance.

A judge has ordered the demolition of the deteriorating Packard auto plant in Detroit, finding that it had become a public nuisance.

click to enlarge Steve NeavlingPackard Plant in Detroit. The Peru-based developer who pledged to redevelop the sprawling Packard Plant on Detroit’s east side now plans to demolish large sections of the abandoned auto factory that has come to symbolize the city's industrial decline.Fernando Palazuelo recently listed the 40-acre site with a commercial real estate firm in search of industrial buyers or tenants.The plan is to demolish large swaths of the crumbling ruins to make way for “a modern, 21st-Century industrial building,” Larry Emmons, senior managing director for real-estate firm Newmark's Southfield office, told The Detroit Free Press Palazuelo paid $405,000 for the site at a Wayne County auction in December 2013 on condition that he would secure the plant, which had largely been vacant since the 1950s.At the time, the veteran developer said he would create art galleries, condos, restaurants, retailers, a brewery, manufacturing space, and even a competitive go-kart racing course.Palazuelo made good on his promise to secure the Albert Kahn-designed plant by removing dangerous debris and hiring guards to keep out urban explorers, photographers, and scrappers who were drawn to the blocks-long ruins. He also rehabbed some of the plant’s administration building.But in January 2019, the iconic bridge over East Grand Boulevard collapsed, and an urban explorer died after falling down an elevator shaft.Emmons said the plan is to find occupants for salvageable sections of the plant and raze the rest of it.“We are offering it to suppliers and to fulfillment centers and others as a build-to-suit for sale or lease, but it’s really for lease," Emmons said. “I am sure it’s going to involve demolishing a large portion of the plant. "Palazuelo’s company Arte Express Detroit is delinquent on more than $1 million in property taxes and water and sewerage bills, Crain’s Detroit reported The enormous factory became largely vacant after Packard Motor Car Company stopped producing luxury cars at the plant in 1956.