MORAINE, Ohio (AP) -- Two former General Motors Co. plant sites in Ohio and one in Michigan have been sold to development firms, a trust created by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court said Wednesday.
The Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response Trust was created in March to clean up, redevelop and sell 89 former GM properties in 14 states didn't release the amounts of the transactions.
A former assembly plant site in Moraine in southwest Ohio was sold to Downey, Calif.-based Industrial Realty Group (IRG), and a former transmission plant site in Parma in northeast Ohio was sold to Solon, Ohio-based 54 Chevy LLC, the trust said in a statement. A former stamping plant site in Wyoming, Mich., was sold to West Bloomfield, Mich.-based Lormax Stern Development Co.
"The sale of these properties creates a tremendous opportunity for economic growth in these communities," Bruce Rasher, redevelopment manager of the trust, said.
IRG plans to divide the Moraine site of approximately 400 acres, including a 4-million-square-foot building, among multiple tenants that would employ up to 2,000 people, the trust said. In Parma, a suburb of Cleveland, 54 Chevy LLC plans to redevelop the 60-acre site to attract jobs to the community, the trust said.
Lormax Stern, the developer that purchased the 88-acre former GM Grand Rapids Stamping Plant site, has provided the property to the city of Wyoming for a token $1 as part of a public-private partnership, the trust said. The 2.6 million-square-foot building will be torn down, and a nonprofit economic development organization will market the property for redevelopment.
"Our focus from the beginning has been to put people who lost jobs when the stamping plant closed back to work, and the redevelopment of this site will help to accomplish that goal," Wyoming City Manager Curtis Holt said.
Parma Mayor Dean DePiero and Moraine City Manager Dave Hicks said their cities also are looking forward to redeveloping the sites as a way to bring jobs back to their communities.
The sites are the first of the 89 properties to be sold, and the proceeds will be used to help cover costs related to owning, maintaining and marketing the remaining properties left behind in the Detroit-based automaker's 2009 bankruptcy, trust spokesman Bill Richmond said.
The trust was established through a settlement agreement between the federal government, 14 states and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe that owns land adjoining one of the sites in New York.
