Guide to Economic Development in the Global Auto Industry - S32

Breaking ground
in Flint: Lear
created a greenfield opportunity
at an old GM
site.

Forces align to bring back a Michigan city
by stephanie hernandez mcgavin

I

n its prime, Flint, Mich., was the heartbeat
that furiously pumped General Motors
vehicles onto the road.
At its lowest, in the years after GM cut
production in the town and closed its Buick
City assembly plant in 1996, Flint was a city
of industrial and commercial vacancies,
viewed as one of the most dangerous cities in
America, and a city where residents couldn't
drink the water.
Michigan and local officials believe there
is a new life for Flint - a city that often
symbolized the image of Rust Belt America.
And the auto industry is making efforts to
reconsider the once booming location.
Ray Scott is such a believer.
Flint is the hometown of Scott, who was
recently promoted to CEO of the global
seating and electronics giant Lear Corp.
Scott led Lear to invest in Flint, with the city's
Buick City area serving as the site for Lear's
latest assembly and subassembly plant.
Lear needed a new production plant, and
Scott admits there was never much doubt
that its location would go to Flint. The
suburban-Detroit seating and electronics
supplier broke ground on the $29.3 million
site late last year.
The 156,000-square-foot plant will be the

32

first major supplier plant built in Flint in
more than 30 years.
"It used to be one of the largest
manufacturing sites in the world," Scott says.
"And we all know what's happened to Flint
over the years."
Positioning Lear in the city is a win-win, the
CEO says. It can serve nearby automakers but
also help a hurting community.
"We've done a lot in the city of Detroit,"
Scott says of Lear, where he has worked since
the 1980s. "I felt that if we were going to do
something, we had to do it in Flint. It's just
who we are. It's the company, and it's how I've
been brought up through the company."
To support the project, the Michigan
Strategic Fund awarded Lear a performancebased grant of $4.35 million. The city of
Flint additionally provided a property tax
abatement for the investment.
Janice Karcher, senior vice president of
economic development at the Flint and
Genesee Chamber of Commerce, says the
chamber has been heavily promoting its
existing industrial infrastructure-including
Buick City-and has received a steady amount
of recent investments.
Another auto supplier, C3 Ventures,
which makes interior plastic components,

E C O N O M I C D E V E L O P M E N T G U I D E / J U LY 2 0 1 8

invested $9.7 million in a 17.69-acre site on an
industrial park in Flint in 2016.
Last year, a Wisconsin-based investment
group purchased a 555,000-square-foot
former Delphi Automotive location that
has been sitting vacant on Flint's east side -
another remnant of GM's past footprint in the
city. It believes it can redevelop the property
and recruit new tenants to the city.
This February, the C.S. Mott Foundation
proposed the development of a $23 million,
140-acre industrial park in Buick City with
warehousing, light industrial and the potential
for about 300 new jobs. The Michigan
Economic Development Corp. pledged
funding support for the concept, although the
plan remains at an early stage.

HARD TIMES
Karcher believes the new employment
that such investments are creating, including
Lear's planned 430 new jobs there, will
encourage other automotive manufacturers
to reconsider the location.
"We're finding that those investments will
help create an opportunity for folks in our
workforce who are underemployed to move
up the ladder," Karcher said.
Flint never quite recovered from the job
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