GM confirms it will invest $1.00 bln on new Michigan car plant

By Neil Versel

DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich., June 20 (SNS) — General Motors Corp. (GM) the world’s largest maker and seller of cars and trucks, today confirmed a Stark’s News Service Interactive report that it will invest $1.00 billion to build a new vehicle assembly plant and metal-stamping facility here for its next generation of mid-size cars and car-based sport-utility vehicles.

GM disclosed that construction of the three-building, 2.2 million-square-foot facility will begin immediately. The auto-maker said that it hopes to have some operations running by 2002, although full vehicle assembly is not expected to begin until 2003.

The facility, which GM said will employ about 2,800 people, will include a 500,000-square-foot sheet metal plant. The vehicle assembly plant will be flexible so that GM could add future light-duty truck production here.

As reported, local officials in the greater Lansing, Mich., area, which includes Delta Township, last month approved $188.0 million worth of tax breaks over a 25-year period for GM to build a factory on a 1.300-acre parcel here, opening the door for GM to build the new manufacturing complex.

This will be GM’s second new plant in the Lansing area. As reported, the company disclosed last January that it began construction of a $558.0 million car assembly plant in Lansing, its first new vehicle factory in the United States since 1986.

The new Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant will have an annual capacity of 150,000 units of cars when it opens in late 2001. It will employ 1,500 people by its third year of operation, GM said.

GM initially will build the next-generation Cadillac Catera-model luxury sport sedan at Lansing Grand River. But the plant will be able to handle production of up to three different vehicle models on the same assembly line, including cars, light-duty trucks or hybrid “crossover vehicles.”

The company said that it hopes to employ “lean manufacturing processes” at the Lansing Grand River facility. GM has been chastised within the auto industry and the general business community for running inefficient plants in North America.

“Lansing Grand River gives us the opportunity to merge our best manufacturing processes from around the world,” GM President and Chief Operating Officer G. Richard Waggoner—since elevated to chief executive officer—said last January. He added, “We’ll apply what we have learned from benchmarking our competition, from working with our global partners and from operating our own facilities worldwide.”