It was once the largest auto manufacturing plant in the world.
Fernando Palazuelo bought the disaster zone for $450,000 in the forclosure auction when the two higher bidders failed to carry through, and has hired industrial cleanup crews and aerial cranes for the 40 acre factory site, which has been the poster child of urban blight in Detroit and hasn’t produced an automobile since the mid-1950s. He plans to build apartments, retail, space for high-tech entrepreneurs, light industrial operations and artist studios.
Before Fernando bought the plant from Wayne County, it was owned by a man called Dominic Cristini, who went to prison in 2006 for selling ecstasy out of an abandoned school nearby. This model of civic and cultural pride went to new depths of depravity when he played with blackmail, claiming to have some legal ability to hold up the title transfer and delay and dissuade investors from showing any interest in getting into business with developing the colossal ruin. Some Chicago business had convinced Wayne County to sell the Packard plant for 2 million, and then failed repeatedly to pay in $100,000 increments.
http://detroit.curbed.com/places/packard-automobile-plant-detroit
Palazuelo said he reached a deal in July with Cristini because the county auction didn’t succeed in fully extinguishing his ownership interests. County auctions are run as buyer beware scenarios, and Palazuelo’s full ownership wasn't legally clean, delaying his plans to obtain financing and attract tenants.
Palazuelo said he struck deals last month with Cristini as well as 17 creditors to Cristini’s former company, Bioresource. It looks like Cristini wasn't the only party with a fast switcheroo to play, Wayne County also didn't include a key parcel of land in the auction, and demanded property taxes pronto. After all, the only incentive for this wreck to change hands was to get current on taxes, and find some sucker that will pay taxes for the time being.
Palazuelo has contracted with O’Brien Construction of Troy as general contractor. The architect is Albert Kahn Associates, whose namesake designed the original factory complex that opened in 1903.
http://www.freep.com/article/20140820/BUSINESS06/308200039/Packard-Plant-Fernando-Palazuelo-update
http://theoldmotor.com/?p=134619
He plans to apply for historic and brownfield tax credits to help pay for the project, which could cost up to $300 million and take decades to complete.
He pledged to hire Detroit workers, including the scrappers who have been dismantling the factory ruins for years.
“We are ready to pay a good salary,” he said. “We’re trying to get them working in the right direction with the Packard Plant.”
http://www.freep.com/article/20140820/BUSINESS06/308200039/Packard-Plant-Fernando-Palazuelo-update
Palazuelo said he also is attempting to acquire a world-famous Banksy graffiti mural that was excavated from the site by artists in 2010 before Palazuelo owned it. In the 3rd surprise boobytrap,
the moment artists from the 555 Gallery, who removed it from the ruins of the Packard Plant claiming that they were merely saving the work from imminent destruction and would put it on public display?
Critics said that gallery had no right to take it — and that the meaning of the graffiti art is indivisible from its location, so to move it is to kill it.
In the wake of the initial Banksy publicity, a company aligned with the then-owner of the Packard Plant sued the gallery for its return. Eventually, 555 paid $2,500 for clear title and the work went on display at the gallery, a renovated old police precinct in southwest Detroit.
After stating that they had no interest in selling it but getting clean and clear possession of it? 555 revealed that it planned to sell the Banksy to raise money for its primary mission of providing exhibition space and studios for artists and educational programs. Critics charged the gallery with hypocrisy.
update, Oct 2015: this art was sold at auction, Julien's Auctions in Hollywood,
£ 90,000
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/banksy/11905421/Banksy-art-sells-for-less-than-expected-after-Detroit-mural-goes-for-90000.html
how crazy is it that artists commemorate the ruins, and amateur film makers capitalize on the vast empty urban wreck, with motorcycle movies?
Many prospective designers/developers/concept artists have imagined what might be done with the 40 acre plot and building frames (which must be built to withstand bombs)
http://parallelprojections.com/rtr-results
http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2014/11/heres-one-plan-to-break-up-and-rebuild-the-packard-plant.php
http://packardplantproject.com/index.html
but some very good website creator has made a before and after imagery that is astonishing in how they have made a half dozen slide/change images of the Packard plants vibrant business time, and it's decayed corpse today
at the website, you drag your mouse over the images, from left to right to go from "then to now"
http://www.freep.com/article/20121202/NEWS01/120823062
