36th Street GM stamping plant site to be redeveloped

[walker]

1 hour ago, GRDadof3 said:

Speaking of hydroponics, Revolution Farms keeps expanding (the purple greenhouses out in Caledonia). 

Well then, maybe this is what I should of wrote when I was trying to be funny:

On 3/10/2022 at 10:10 AM, walker said:

. . . I think it would be a good spot for a new giant Revolution Farms greenhouse. 

 

[Cookin_peacocks]

Couldn't they do a faux downtown with blocks of mixed use buildings and green space with apartments and retail?

 

You see that done in newish areas of southern cities and it's so cool.

[SupercityGR]

On 3/10/2022 at 10:10 AM, walker said:

After all these years still no shovels in the ground.  News today is that Franklin Partners decides to buy the property themselves:

MLIVE: former-gm-stamping-plant-site-near-grand-rapids-purchased-by-real-estate-developer

Wonder if they've got some definite plans or this was just a good price they couldn't resist.

I think it would be a good spot for a new Tesla factory. 

Tesla wants to kill every small town in America. I want nothing to do with Tesla in Michigan 

[joeDowntown]

2 hours ago, SupercityGR said:

Tesla wants to kill every small town in America. I want nothing to do with Tesla in Michigan 

Say what?! I think Tesla’s are really nice, not a fan of Elon Musk, but this comment seems like you need to put some tinfoil on your head. LOL

[walker]

30 minutes ago, joeDowntown said:

Say what?! I think Tesla’s are really nice, not a fan of Elon Musk, but this comment seems like you need to put some tinfoil on your head. LOL

I was confused too, so I did a Google search on Elon Musk + small town.  Don't know if this is what he's talking about and it's only one town, not every small town in America, but the twenty-six residents of Boca Chica Texas aren't happy with Musk:

FUTURISM: residents-furious-at-elon-musk-rural-town-growing-spaceport

 

Edited March 12, 2022 by walker

[SupercityGR]

13 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

Say what?! I think Tesla’s are really nice, not a fan of Elon Musk, but this comment seems like you need to put some tinfoil on your head. LOL

Tesla is anti dealer. I work for a small family owned dealer in a small town north of Muskegon. The dealership is a major pillar in the town. Provides good jobs and a needed service to folks in the small town. Tesla wants people to buy a car online. Michigan was built on the back of the auto industry. Tesla wants to ruin all of it. Michigan has so many jobs from people that design the car, build the car, ship the car, clean the car, sell the car, service the car ect ect. The United States has around 18k new car franchises. The 18k stores provide good paying and benefit jobs to communities all over county. Now picture instead of new car stores, we have 2 tesla showrooms per state. The massive amount of lost jobs and empty buildings would be crazy 

[GRDadof3]

2 hours ago, SupercityGR said:

Tesla is anti dealer. I work for a small family owned dealer in a small town north of Muskegon. The dealership is a major pillar in the town. Provides good jobs and a needed service to folks in the small town. Tesla wants people to buy a car online. Michigan was built on the back of the auto industry. Tesla wants to ruin all of it. Michigan has so many jobs from people that design the car, build the car, ship the car, clean the car, sell the car, service the car ect ect. The United States has around 18k new car franchises. The 18k stores provide good paying and benefit jobs to communities all over county. Now picture instead of new car stores, we have 2 tesla showrooms per state. The massive amount of lost jobs and empty buildings would be crazy 

There's a Tesla service dealer in Grand Rapids now on 29th Street. I don't see a lot of dealerships on 28th Street hurting from this. Carmax is also on 28th Street and I don't see them hurting the other dealerships. 

Ordering cars online is a trend that I don't see becoming commonplace for a long, long time. Just like Zillow and Redfin were going to cause the extinction of real estate agents and there are now more licensed agents than ever. 

[tamias6]

As a customer, why should I have to buy a car through a middle man when Tesla proved it very much possible and doable to order a vehicle online and pay only MSRP eliminating dealer markups? That's a savings of several thousand dollars.  Also why should I as a customer have to go through the hassle of haggling with a dealer for a final purchase price when I can pay the price I see just like buying somthing from the grocery store. I could imagine how much of a pain it would be to spend hours haggling a Meijer red shirt for a fair price for a bottle of milk and a leaf of bread.  That would suck.  No I'm all for cars being sold directly by their makers and paying the price on the tag without haggling. 

 

Oh, Tesla Model Y Long Range owner speaking here. Buying the car online was a smooth experience. The service center on 29th street had polite informative staff that treated us right and gave us honest answers and helped us every step of the way. And during the one and only time the car needed servicing, the mobile tech was extremely nice and very helpful. 

If this is the future of buying cars, I'm all in. 

[Guest]

IIRC this site has fairly significant contamination, which is probably why this hasn't been developed.  Isn't warehouse/industrial at almost 100% occupancy?  I feel like high density residential would be nice for the area.

[GR8scott]

Dealerships as they are presently are a middle man with a lot of inefficiencies, large amount of land and inventory that could actually improve for everyone with pressure from direct to consumer sales. I dont see anywhere that the goal of tesla is to "kill every small town in America", its more like provide alternatives that challenge the 100 year old automotive/electric utility monopolies that exist and are resistant to change until Tesla proved they could sell vehicles that people want to buy. Not a fan boy but lets be realistic about it at least. IMO Tesla would not want to build a plant here because they can in other places with the same or more incentives, more centralized location and without union wages, like Tennesse where the auto investment in that state in the middle of the country, no income tax, no unions and practically paying Nissan, GM, Ford, VW and others to build there. 

[cstonesparty]

12 hours ago, GR8scott said:

Dealerships as they are presently are a middle man with a lot of inefficiencies, large amount of land and inventory that could actually improve for everyone with pressure from direct to consumer sales. I dont see anywhere that the goal of tesla is to "kill every small town in America", its more like provide alternatives that challenge the 100 year old automotive/electric utility monopolies that exist and are resistant to change until Tesla proved they could sell vehicles that people want to buy. Not a fan boy but lets be realistic about it at least. IMO Tesla would not want to build a plant here because they can in other places with the same or more incentives, more centralized location and without union wages, like Tennesse where the auto investment in that state in the middle of the country, no income tax, no unions and practically paying Nissan, GM, Ford, VW and others to build there. 

The fact that GM and Ford both had to basically threaten their dealers over their pricing behaviors pertaining to electric vehicles speaks volumes about this topic…

[SupercityGR]

Considering how much a tesla costs I would not say cutting out the middle man saved you money. But hey your 60K purchase helps to fund a rocket lmao.  Anyways not gonna get into the build quality issues or any of the other issues of Tesla. Back realistic options for the 36th site. I know in Whitehall they brought in a massive amount of dirt in to build new lake front homes on White lake. It was a former tannery with contaminated ground. Anyway to clean up the property to build new townhouses and apartments? Another neat idea would be a small IP amusement park like Sesame place in Philadelphia and San Diego. 

Edited March 16, 2022 by SupercityGR

[GR8scott]

well thats like saying your $60k chevy, they do exist but not for all customers...the fact is vast majority of Tesla sales now are models 3 and Y which both start under $60k. Back to the point if you want an auto plant on the property more likely be a Rivian (formerly MI based and not opposed to unions) but the city (or GM?) demolished the plant building meaning they didnt want it to be reused as a plant like Tesla and Rivian both did to get started. Now doesnt really have an advantage of being an auto plant specifically except for maybe the rail spurs into it. 

It would be cool to see a high profile industry (especially in the EV space) build there as there are not many existing options for that but I am doubtful that would happen. More likely smaller industrial/commercial pieces like Kalamazoo did with the former GM plant site along 94/Sprinkle exit. I think a mixed use would work there utilizing the rail spurs, easy highway access and adjacent industrial for smaller industrial sites, commercial along 36th and a small amount of high density residential next to the existing residential along the property. Theres probably not a huge demand for commercial there being so close to Division/28th/44th but maybe a few things. Residential of course and would be good for lower/moderate income dare I say maybe even midrise apartments? And the part along the rail line should remain industrial. 

Probably something like this Green; Commercial Red; Residential Yellow; Industrial