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.