Development deal reached to sell Packard plant for $1 million

Photo by carnagenyc.

A Chicago-area developer has agreed to buy the former Packard manufacturing plant in Detroit for nearly $1 million in unpaid taxes, and has been given permission to begin securing the 40-acre property, according to the Wayne County Treasurer’s office.

Developer Bill Hults has until the end of today, Thursday, to place the $1 million payment in escrow, according to Deputy Treasurer David Szymanski. “I’m cautiously optimistic” that the deal with go forward without a hitch, Szymanski said. He said Hults intends to create a commercial, residential and entertainment complex from the vacant and deteriorating factory buildings, which the county seized for non-payment of taxes. “It’s going to be an oasis of urban living – a gated community of some sort,” Szymanski said.

The deal with Hults comes on the eve of an auction of the property. Under the county’s rules, the property was offered this month with an opening bid of the amount of taxes owed. If no bid had been made, the property would have gone up for auction again in October, with the minimum bid set at just $500 for each of the 42 parcels, or $21,000.

Hults told the Detroit News that he and a group of investors want to save as many of the 47 remaining buildings as possible. Despite the buildings’ deteriorated condition, he and others are optimistic that the reinforced concrete skeletons of the structures might still be sound. “Packard is a global brand and has a global identity. It’s kind of like buying Coca-Cola,” Hults told the Detroit News. “I couldn’t spend enough money to have that built-in identity. It would take a couple of lifetimes to build that. … If Packard wasn’t there or was bulldozed, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

Hults has hired Albert Kahn Associates, the legendary industrial architectural firm that built the factory in 1903, for the property’s transformation. The factory at East Grand Avenue was one of this country’s earliest examples of reinforced concrete construction, and was once considered one of the world’s most advanced factories. Production at East Grand ended in 1954, when Packard acquired the Connor Avenue plant from Briggs. The East Grand plant has since had a variety of uses, but has been in steady decline for decades.