Auto supplier will turn Southwestern High into training center.

[MSUguy]

India-based Sakthi Automotive is launching a major expansion of vehicle parts manufacturing along a half-mile stretch of Fort Street in southwest Detroit, with plans that include a new aluminum foundry, 350 more jobs and conversion of the former Southwestern High School into a worker training hub.

Today the Michigan Strategic Fund [[MSF) approved a $3.5-million incentive grant for Sakthi, which will invest $31.8 million to expand in Detroit, rather than accept offers of free land, training grants and low-interest construction loans dangled by other states including Ohio, Georgia and South Carolina.

It all amounts to a huge bet on Detroit by an Asian auto supplier that had no North American manufacturing presence until January 2014, when it starting making parts in Detroit – at a time when many global automotive companies were flocking to Mexico and southern U.S. states.

Sakthi's rapid growth since arriving – $58 million in projected revenue this year, $150 million in 2016 and $450 million by 2020 – is a welcome bright spot in a city desperate for a manufacturing resurgence.

http://www.freep.com/story/money/bus...sion/26420149/


What a win for the city more jobs and Southwestern get saved from the wrecking ball.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

The repurposing of Southwestern High is especially good news. I was wondering what the Mayor had up his sleeve last week when he said there would be an announcement involving Southwestern today.

[mikeg19]

Huge win for that area. Good to see the HS will be repurposed instead of being bulldozed.

[sumas]

That is fantastic news.

[emu steve]

India-based Sakthi Automotive is launching a major expansion of vehicle parts manufacturing along a half-mile stretch of Fort Street in southwest Detroit, with plans that include a new aluminum foundry, 350 more jobs and conversion of the former Southwestern High School into a worker training hub.

Today the Michigan Strategic Fund [[MSF) approved a $3.5-million incentive grant for Sakthi, which will invest $31.8 million to expand in Detroit, rather than accept offers of free land, training grants and low-interest construction loans dangled by other states including Ohio, Georgia and South Carolina.

It all amounts to a huge bet on Detroit by an Asian auto supplier that had no North American manufacturing presence until January 2014, when it starting making parts in Detroit – at a time when many global automotive companies were flocking to Mexico and southern U.S. states.

Sakthi's rapid growth since arriving – $58 million in projected revenue this year, $150 million in 2016 and $450 million by 2020 – is a welcome bright spot in a city desperate for a manufacturing resurgence.

http://www.freep.com/story/money/bus...sion/26420149/


What a win for the city more jobs and Southwestern get saved from the wrecking ball.

Nice to see words like automotive, parts, expansion, Detroit all in the same sentence!!!

As was discussed in another thread, automotive engineering and southeast MI seem to go hand in hand, but it is the manufacturing part which needs to come back home [[to Detroit).

[emu steve]

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...roit/27108297/

[Gpwrangler]

Geez I hope they at least walked through the building before they signed the deal.

[Zacha341]

Or stripped to the bones by the scrappers as has been the fate of so many unused DPS properties.

Huge win for that area. Good to see the HS will be repurposed instead of being bulldozed.

[Gpwrangler]

Or stripped to the bones by the scrappers as has been the fate of so many unused DPS properties.

But it HAS been stripped to the bones.

[Zacha341]

^^^ OH! I did not know. I know the ones by me are.