Packard Plant to be demolished?

[313WX]

I personally am tired of looking at this dump on my daily commute.

If you take the route I think you take, then I'm sure you can always find another route to/from work in a big & heavily gridded city. It's not like anyone forces you to go pass the Packard plant on our daily commute.

[Gsgeorge]

If you take the route I think you take, then I'm sure you can always find another route to/from work in a big & heavily gridded city. It's not like anyone forces you to go pass the Packard plant on our daily commute.

Yes, then instead of driving past the gigantic abandoned Packard Plant, you drive by mile after mile of blighted and abandoned neighborhoods.

[econ expat]

Property taxes have not been paid for over ten years for the Packard plant property. The city or the county or the state owns this property. They need to step in and have a tax sale, a foreclosure, or whatnot.

\
Just before the area economy really tanked the state law was changed to hasten tax lien 'repos' and avoid so many properties being 'squatted' with no taxes paid for years until the last minute.

Those laws don't apply to anyone who can get a lawyer to drag it out, I guess.

Rest of us are out of luck. I sold a property in the thumb on land contract. The buyers did not keep up their payments or taxes. By the time the legal process got the property back to me- too late. The county would not allow me to just pay the back taxes and penalties if any, I had to bid against anyone else to try to buy the property back. This was after just a year or 2 of unpaid taxes!

[313WX]

Yes, then instead of driving past the gigantic abandoned Packard Plant, you drive by mile after mile of blighted and abandoned neighborhoods.

Then take the freeway.

You can't see much when you're several feet below ground.

[unclefrank]

Use the tax laws. Why is this so hard?

[56packman]

Use the tax laws. Why is this so hard?

Maybe, just maybe because the city used the tax laws so badly in their illegal attempt to land-grab the complex from the owners in 1999 that the whole tax laws thing is problematic?
The city should take the complex now, if they can with any shread of honesty in the eyes of the courts and proceed with demolition, at their expense. They ruined the complex, let the [[broke ass) city pay for the demolition.
Someone on a Packard forum I frequent made an astute observation: the 20 Million it will take to demo the plant and remediate the site would have saved Studebaker-Packard in 1956 when they ran out of cash and needed help. the money was around back then. Today, there isn't much money around, and it's going to have to be spent anyway.

[Lowell]

I find it difficult to believe that the Packard site could be demoed and remediated for $20 million. Just curious. What is the source of that calculation? That's only a little over $500K per acre.

To expect the indeed 'broke ass' CofD to expend even that amount with no reuse plan on the horizon is next to impossible. And I can't imagine what salvage value it could hold. The scrapers have taken a big bite out the easy pickings and, unless they find the re-rod was made of gold, there is little more there than one huge environmental cleanup bill.

[3rdDegreeBurns]

Property taxes have not been paid for over ten years for the Packard plant property. The city or the county or the state owns this property. They need to step in and have a tax sale, a foreclosure, or whatnot.

I don't think the city should be stuck with the bill for any Packard plant demo. It would set a horrible precedent if the city were to take possession of a site that has zero value, and is in fact a multi-million dollar liability. Why should property owners get to shed all of their liability just by NOT paying taxes for a few years? If you buy it, you're responsible for it.

It seems to me that the real reason the city hasn't demo'ed the property yet [[and billed the owners) is that the city has no reasonable expectation of recovering the costs. The courts have been vague on deciding ownership, and the most recent known owner probably doesn't have the resources to pay for that demo/remediation. Even if they did, the city would probably be stuck in court for years trying to get paid. The city does this stuff with residential properties that get demo'ed but they have a very poor collection rate.

[EastsideAl]

Shameful, just shameful. Casab is a real bastard.

He really is a sickening bottom-feeding SOB. And his buddy Tony Adamo, beneficiary of the "we're just tearing this building down for the good of the city" DEGC, is just as bad if not worse. Slimeballs like this are one reason that the city is in the shape it's in. Not all the criminals live in the ghetto...

[CLAUDE G]

I doubt the packard plant could be demolished for 20 Million. I think the price tag on the Michigan Central Depot was 5-10 million dollars, and im compairson to the Packard plant is many times larger.

There is so many other things that, that type of money could be used for so the building sits like it is.

If nobody has the money to demolish it, how about just cleaning up all the trash and securing the place?

If its cost prohibitive to get rid of the Trash, how about just dumping it inside the building and securing all the open enterances?

[Packman41]

I find it difficult to believe that the Packard site could be demoed and remediated for $20 million. Just curious. What is the source of that calculation? That's only a little over $500K per acre.

To expect the indeed 'broke ass' CofD to expend even that amount with no reuse plan on the horizon is next to impossible. And I can't imagine what salvage value it could hold. The scrapers have taken a big bite out the easy pickings and, unless they find the re-rod was made of gold, there is little more there than one huge environmental cleanup bill.

I think it would cost more than $20 million to clean-up.

And why shouldn't the CofD pay for a problem they caused. In 1999 they tried a land grab for unpaid taxes but went after the wrong guy. The CofD threw out [[using the "Gang Squad" from the police dept.) 90 small business owners that were making a living there as tenants in the plant. That shut off the cash flow for the [[then) owner who could no longer pay the real estate taxes. The CofD then brought in demolition contractors to open up the buildings and start tearing them down. Once the buildings were open, then mother nature, the Vandals, the Visigoths and scrappers did the rest.

They started it, now they can finish it.

[Lowell]

I share your opinion that the city bears a big share of the burden and responsibility. I was addressing the broader issue of why it will not be demoed anytime soon. The city can barely keep it's lights on. It seems no one has title to the place. There is little scrap value and probably zero demand for the land.

[Hermod]

I share your opinion that the city bears a big share of the burden and responsibility. I was addressing the broader issue of why it will not be demoed anytime soon. The city can barely keep it's lights on. It seems no one has title to the place. There is little scrap value and zero demand for the land.

I wonder:

1. The city goes through the legal process to take tilte to the land for back taxes.

2. The city offers the land "free" to a responsible party on the following basis:

a. Demo and remediation to be complete within one year.

b. Transfer of title to the responsible party after a. is complete.

c. No taxes assessed by the city for an indefinite period. The property will be deemed worthless by the appraiser until the owner begins development of the property.

3. The city has a "green field" yielding no taxes instead of a hazardous brown field yielding no taxes.

[Lowell]

I like the idea and would like to see it happen but I don't understand why a responsible party would put the kind of money and then let it lay fallow until they find a developer. Investments of that scale need quick returns and a reuse plan ready to roll.

[mauser]

Do you think we can get Banksy to put some 'art' on Casab's Commerce Township home? He has made it clear that he believes it is valuable art so he should be very happy to come home one day to see that Banksy adorned his home with some art.

i am shocked that you would take this particular position.

[bdubya13]

His name is Pete Adamo, and I have his cell # perhaps I will post it.

[Packman41]

@Hermod, you said
1. The city goes through the legal process to take tilte to the land for back taxes.
2. The city offers the land "free" to a responsible party on the following basis:
a. Demo and remediation to be complete within one year.
b. Transfer of title to the responsible party after a. is complete.
c. No taxes assessed by the city for an indefinite period. The property will be deemed worthless by the appraiser until the owner begins development of the property.

What makes you think any investor in their right mind would accept this offer? If they accepted, then they are commiting to spend $20+ million for land that is, for all practical purposes, worthless. Look at what the CofD is willing to do for Cadillac Square, free land downtown tax abatement and still it is not built. Look at Quicken; about $200 million of tax incentives and free land and it still is not built. What in the world would someone do with 43 acres of land out on E. Grand Boulevard.

By the way, your appraisal comment got me to thinking. With all the gimmes the CofD has to dole out for ANY development in the downtown [[generally free land) then ALL a land in the ciyt is about worthless.

[WaCoTS]

The City of detroit caused the plant to be in the condition it is today, they should pay for the demolition and call it good.

agreed.

didnt the County have something to do with it too, or were they just the executors of the evictions?

[56packman]

agreed.

didnt the County have something to do with it too, or were they just the executors of the evictions?

My eviction notice was on city of Detroit letterhead, from the city. Officers from the gang squad were stationed at the plant to check vehicle titles against vin #s as we took our cars out of the plant. The city and state have dirt on their hands in this.
No legal action will come to bear against any of them, it's just some old building in a part of town that doesn't get much love.

[Packman41]

When all the CofD nonsense starting happening the Packard Plant was [[arguably) in better physical and financial shape than the Russell Industrial Center. Then the CofD sent in the gang squad and their demo team. Now look where the RIC is in comparison to the Packard Plant.

[Detroitnerd]

There's a big rail line right next to it. Why can they just set up machinery to remill the concrete and send it to China? Fill up hopper cars right here, and ship it off, grain by grain?

[jackie5275]

If you take the route I think you take, then I'm sure you can always find another route to/from work in a big & heavily gridded city. It's not like anyone forces you to go pass the Packard plant on our daily commute.

First, you have no idea of my route or where I work. Second, I'm not going to go out my way to change my route to avoid looking at the plant. I'm still sick of looking at it, just as I am sick of looking at other vacant property I pass on my commute.

[slick]

How about this scenario from the Poletown days.
GM should have demolished the Packard plant, built the Cadillac plant and rehab the neighborhood they destroyed for the workers at said Cadillac plant. Of course that would have stuck Hamtramck with Dodge main which was winding down its days as a plant.

[56packman]

A little historical perspective, slick--the Packard plant was a going concern in 1980 when the Poletown plant land acquisition began, it had over 100 tennants, and was relatively well kept at the time. Chrysler had announced that they were leaving Dodge Main in 1980, a very large parcel of land with an aged auto plant on site. The choice was pretty clear. GM had already announced, or made semi-public that they were going to be phasing out Clark Street and the Fleetwood plant on Fort and that they were taking Cadillac down south. In a rare move of action for his constituients, Coleman Young and his administration fought to keep the jobs in Detroit and in Michigan by the Poletown plant land acquisition. The Packard site was not the right shape for the new plant anyway, if you look at the Poletown plant today, it is a large square polt of land, the Packard plant site is rectangular.

[56packman]

When all the CofD nonsense starting happening the Packard Plant was [[arguably) in better physical and financial shape than the Russell Industrial Center. Then the CofD sent in the gang squad and their demo team. Now look where the RIC is in comparison to the Packard Plant.

..........and the model T plant in Highland Park.