Packard Plant - Article re: Last Tenant, Chemical Processing, Inc.

**cman710** · October-30-09, 09:20 PM

The holdout: Alone in an abandoned car plant

DETROIT [[CNNMoney.com) -- Most people assume the Packard Plant in Detroit is vacant. It's an industrial ruin where the last car was manufactured 53 years ago. Almost all the windows are blown out. Collapsed walls litter the overgrown sidewalks with broken bricks, mixed with charred metal and shattered glass. But one tenant remains headquartered among the vines, rust and graffiti. Where 11,000 employees once clocked in, now just 10 workers for Chemical Processing Inc. show up each morning.

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**Gsgeorge** · October-30-09, 10:32 PM

Interesting, I have always wondered about Chemical Processing and the poor blokes who have to work and run the place. At least he doesn't seem to mind too much.

Shameless plug: my photograph of local photographer Ara Howrani chilling in his Cutty on Michigan Ave. appears halfway down the page in this article under "Why I Love Detroit"! That one is well worth a read too!

**Lowell** · October-31-09, 12:02 AM

I have met Bruce Kafarski, owner of Chemical Processing. He is an amazingly calm person that just keeps on rolling with his business as if nothing has happened.

His family has had the business there since the final days of Packard so he has seen it all. His equanimity is the opposite of so many business owners in similar settings who I have met and who tend to be bitter, complaining and burnt out.

His struggles against scavengers, scrappers and the general chaos surrounding him give him every right to be that way too, but he isn't. Once when I stopped to see him copper thieves had made off with his wiring the previous night shutting him down for the day. He seemed to have a 'so what' attitude and got busy fixing the situation.

The line where he says, "Sometimes when I need a break, when my head needs clearing, I go and just walk the building," kind of sums up his zen-like demeanor.

**jjaba** · October-31-09, 12:44 AM

jjaba remembers when Lowell showed jjaba how to create the perfect photograph of the Packard Plant. jjaba has met Dominic at Concord School nearby. Dominic holds on, in the heart of Eastside squalor.
jjaba on the Westside.

**RickBeall** · October-31-09, 02:03 AM

Amazing businessman.

**cman710** · October-31-09, 09:17 AM

The article seemed to indicate that Kafarski might be near the end of his line, which is unfortunate, as it is highly admirable [[some might say crazy, but choose admirable) that he has continued to persevere in the face such difficult circumstances. I suppose Kafarski gets a small benefit from having to pay zero to little rent at the Packard Plant, but I am sure that is compensated for by all the crap he has to deal with in terms of scrapping and the like.

**Django** · October-31-09, 06:05 PM

There is another business across the street, Im not sure if you would call it a business but he is a renter or owner. He mainly uses the space for storage and fixes a few cars as I understand. I know the guy who lives there also, a caretaker of sorts, nice guy but Ive gotten a little tired of being asked by him if I need saving. I figure anyone hanging around the Packard needs a little saving.

**reddog289** · November-02-09, 02:57 AM

After reading that and the other article. I give the folks that stay credit. I myself would have moved to a different location even near by, If I was in the Packard Plant. From what I was reading in another thread about doing business in Detroit, Those who stay are brave souls.
The screw machine shop my Uncle ran closed a year ago. In its final few years it had been broken into and the steel was stolen among other items.Cause he and two other Uncles worked there I would stop in. I would get the rundown on the crime in the area.I told my Uncle on my final visit before the place went out that it was bad enuff that things are like this, THE POLICE IN LIVONIA must be swamped.

**Hypestyles** · November-02-09, 10:21 PM

the entire complex needs to be leveled... nostalgia be darned...

**56packman** · November-03-09, 12:31 PM

Well Hyperstyles, the [[broke as broke can be) city can pay for the demolition and site remediation. They killed the business that was there in the great land grab attempt of 1999.
I don't disagree, the complex has been robbed of any usefulness by the city/state-sponsored free for all that has been going on for the last 10 years.

**buildingsofdetroit** · November-12-09, 07:24 PM

This guy is nuts:

Texan wants to save Packard Plant, make cars there again:

http://freep.com/article/20091112/BL...rd-purr-again?

**kathy2trips** · November-17-09, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by buildingsofdetroit

This guy is nuts:

Texan wants to save Packard Plant, make cars there again:

http://freep.com/article/20091112/BL...rd-purr-again?

Don't be too sure about that, B.O.D. Born and raised on the east side, I've lived in Houston working in Oil & Gas long enough to know a little about the psychology of energy as it pertains to the auto industry.

To put it in one paragraph, and I hope I'm saying it right, people down here are really fed up with our dependence on overseas oil. The drive to free us from that dependence is really strong, down here, Texans being the independent sort anyway. You can imagine how this just ticks them off. O&G's are now becoming "energy companies" that will just trade crude oil for something else. Nobody feels threatened. Some feel electricity is the way to go. Others [[mostly academics, so far) feel that a tiny nuclear cell will be the answer.

There is also a faction that thinks that the natural progression is natural gas. It is unbelievably easy to convert liquid gasoline stations to natural gas pumping stations. We have enough natural gas to last us until the next innovation and beyond.

This guy has it going on. And so does everyone else who's giving it a shot. Economic dependence is a kind of slavery. These folks are trying to free us from that, not to mention the threats coming from the Middle East. I say: go for it, Bubba! And I hope you get rich doing it.

RE: The Packard Plant:
Get the EPA out there STAT! It'll just be a curiosity until we find out what's there, esp. what's in the soil. Then, we can go from there. Nobody will want to buy it if it's toxic and uninhabitable. Texas guy included.

**cman710** · November-17-09, 10:17 AM

Yes, there definitely needs to be an environmental assessment on the Packard Plant site. Given the manufacturing history of the site, I think there is a 100% chance that the site is badly contaminated.

**56packman** · November-17-09, 10:38 AM

I wish him well, the last attempt to revive the Packard Marque died a few years ago. He should keep in mind that Packard wanted out of the East Grand Boulevard plant in the early 1950s, and had planned on building a single-floor assembly plant in Utica, next to their Mound road plant on the back 40 of the proving grounds. The idea at the time was predicated on the [[planned) merger of Studebaker-Packard with AMC [[Hudson-Nash) into what George Mason had envisioned as "American Motors". The Utica plant was to be their "big car" plant, ala' GM's BOP consolidations of the 1980s, they would have made Packards, Clippers and Hudsons at that plant.
THe war showed all manufacturers that the old multi-story plants were not the modern, efficient way to go. Every plant built for the war, and after has gone out instead of up.