Built for Good Newsletter Fall 2014

Fall 2014

BUILT FOR GOOD

SM

Chrysler SHAP additions

6

Orange County Schools

8

Little piece of history

15

READY SET GO We construct facilities, install equipment and deliver world-class quality for clients on the move.

RECENT WORK Auto/Aerospace aluminum casting & extrusion plant construction, 450,000 SF Automotive aluminum sheet finishing line expansion, 500,000 SF Automotive aluminum sheet finishing line expansion, 300,000 SF Automotive aluminum body shop installation, 300,000 SF Automotive assembly plant construction, 800,000 SF

Automotive body shop construction, 985,000 SF Automotive paint shop construction, 870,000 SF Automotive supplier park construction, 2.7 million SF Automotive transmission plant construction, 960,000 SF

READY WHEN YOU ARE CONTACT Randy Abdallah, Executive Vice President 866.331.6585 | rabdallah@walbridge.com

www.walbridge.com

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6

10

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This Issue

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04

From the editor

05

A Meaningful Mentorship

06

House of Cars

08

Built for Less

10

OUEC Walks the Talk

12

Climbing the Mountain

14

What We’re Building

14

People and Awards

15

Walbridge Timeline

Cover: A student rides her bike to the new John Young Elementary School, built for Florida’s Orange County Public Schools Built For Good is a publication of the Walbridge Group, Inc. Forward any comments or questions to Erin Hooper at ehooper@walbridge.com © 2014 SM

Built For Good I 3

FROM THE EDITOR

I

’ll admit: Working from Walbridge’s world headquarters, I don’t often get to see first-hand what’s going on out in the field.

Only once, maybe twice during a project lifecycle do I make it out to witness a major milestone. And that’s typically at projects located within driving distance from Detroit, where our headquarters are based. As one of two writers for the quarterly Built for Good newsletter, however, I’m given a unique opportunity to interact with project executives and managers and learn the intimate details of projects I’m not fortunate enough to be a part of day in and day out.

Three of our most recent projects are detailed in this issue.

It’s not uncommon for those of us who work in the main office to never visit a Walbridge jobsite, especially if it’s out of state or out of the country. It’s equally common for a project manager to rarely meet the administrator who arranges her flights to and from our corporate offices. But it’s still important to appreciate people on the front lines as well as in the back shop. Without our teams out in the field – our boots on the ground – buildings wouldn’t be built. And without our professionals here in the office working to get work, support IT infrastructure and make sure our paychecks are signed, well, Walbridge wouldn’t be such a well-oiled machine.

Sitting down with Walbridge employees who play a major role in our company’s greatest achievements is no doubt the best part of my job. Ken Beaudoin, who’s retiring from the company at the end of this year (page 13), has been a Walbridge employee for 44 years – that’s 14 times the length of my seniority with the company. He and I just met for the first time recently for the sole purpose of writing his feature for this issue of Built for Good. This is what I’m talking about.

Oftentimes our employees will do things on their own time to promote the industry or charitable organizations, and some of us never hear about it. Dave Robson, our Business Development Director for Walbridge Industrial Process, recently mentored a startup architectural firm that creates playful spaces for kids (page 5). If it wasn’t for being editor of this newsletter, I might not know that.

So regardless of where the job is being performed, it’s important to remember that it’s the efforts of our employees that truly make Walbridge Built for Good. And it’s my job to relay that message to you.

From my desk to yours, Erin Hooper Content specialist Corporate Communications Walbridge | Detroit, Michigan

4 I Built For Good

Walbridge Mentor Helps Architectural Firm Focus D

ave Robson stays very busy meeting his responsibilities as Business Development Director for Walbridge Industrial Process, which focuses on companies involved in everything from agriculture to automotive and energy to metals. But, he still finds time to share his business acumen with a small, Detroit-based architectural design firm specializing in creating fun and nurturing spaces for children and young adults.

The firm is coG-studio LLC, which was founded by architect Chandra Moore in 2011. Chandra graduated in 2002 with a Master’s in Architecture from the University of Detroit Mercy. Over time, she worked for prominent firms, including SmithGroup and Gensler. But following her architect father’s death at age 58, she realized her hope of someday working alongside him would never be fulfilled. She questioned whether she wanted to remain an architect.

“I was at the point where I didn’t want to do this anymore,” she said. “I felt like I was chasing something that just didn’t make sense. I felt if I was going to live life, I might as well try to create change by focusing on something I love… which is youth.”

At that point, Moore developed a career plan with two options: Take her 11 years of experience and go back to work for a large, global architectural firm or respond to an entrepreneurial urge and start her own business. She interviewed with a mega-firm, which offered her a position as Design Lead in her home state of California. At the same time, Moore waited for word from the Detroit Creative Corridor Center (DC3) to learn if she’d been accepted into its Creative Ventures Residency Program.

“I was literally sitting at a conference room table in Los Angeles at a second interview with this firm when I got the call from DC3,” Moore recalled. “I chose to stay in Detroit.”

The DC3 program assists a select group of young entrepreneurs for a year, providing free rent at an incubator space and matching them with an experienced mentor from the southeastern Michigan business community. With DC3, the mentors select the mentees. Both Robson and Arthur Mitchell, an Executive Vice President at the time with advertising firm Lowe Campbell Ewald, checked out Moore and decided to work with her.

“Arthur was in branding, so I understood that,” Moore said. “I knew Walbridge was in construction, but I didn’t know how construction sales would help me. They were at opposite ends of the spectrum.”

As Moore began working with Robson, they talked about putting together a strategic business plan. Then, they would dovetail it with a plan for generating sales.

“Chandra’s original plan was to save the world from all of its

problems,” Robson said. “I thought that was heartfelt and sincere, but it wasn’t going to pay the bills. So, we looked at what she was passionate about and got her focused on that.”

Moore’s passion was designing spaces for children. She recalled meeting a critically ill child years earlier at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital while she was touring with a team from SmithGroup. “We were all dressed in scrubs and this girl asked, ‘Are you going to make me better?’” Moore said. “She couldn’t understand how she got there. Her family was distraught. That changed me.

“I thought about what I could do to help. In my career, I loved doing the airports and the stadiums. But what I loved the most were projects with kids.”

As a result, coG – “like a cog in a wheel,” Moore explains – pinpoints its focus on designing spaces and environments for children and young adults.

“Dave helped me come up with a strategy we live by today: Live, Learn and Play,” Moore said. “I had to come up with a definition of what is the Live Studio, the Learn Studio and the Play Studio. It helped immensely.”

Robson helped Moore break the three components into sectors and identified market capacity and targets, and built a gameplan to reach those prospects. Now, Moore sits down at the beginning of each year and strategizes, “Who do we want to go after for Live, for Learn, etc.”

Today, Moore and coG are moving into new quarters in mid-town Detroit. The small staff of architects and interior designers is collaborative and focused on winning new business.

“At first, Chandra was purely thinking from the architect’s side of her brain,” Robson said. “I’ve seen a total switch. She’s been able to merge that with business fundamentals. Over the last few years she’s grown ten-fold.

“I’m proud of where Chandra is today,” he added. “This is all due to her passion and drive, and her relentless work ethic.”

For more information about coG-studio, visit www.cog-studio.com .

Built For Good I 5

Inside the new body shop

Inside the metrology lab

View of the plant floor

PAINTING A CAR IS SERIOUS STUFF Inside the new paint shop at SHAP, the new Chrysler 200 is first dunked into a pool, where it gets seven baths and then seven showers before an electrically-charged coat of primer is applied as the paint job’s foundational line of defense. Next the sedan’s underbody is moved through a sealing station, where the car is flipped upside down in rotisserie fashion to prevent dripping.

After that, 10 robots go to work powder coating the vehicle’s exterior, applying a hard second layer of defense (the 3 percent of powder that doesn’t make it onto each car falls into floor grates where it’s collected for use on the next vehicle). Finally, three coats of paint are applied, which gives the Chrysler 200 its 3-D appearance and extra protection against corrosion.

Take the virtual tour of SHAP at www.chrysler200factory.com.

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House of cars T

he Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) first opened in 1953 as the Michigan Ordinance Missile Plant, producing jet engines for the U.S. Army’s Redstone and Jupiter missiles.

Three years after its 1980 conversion to an automobile plant, Chrysler Corporation purchased the facility to build the Chrysler LeBaron GTS and Dodge Lancer. Production of the Dodge Shadow and Plymouth Sundance followed, then came the Dodge Daytona, and many other well-known automobiles.

By the end of 1991, nearly 1.3 million vehicles had rolled off the line at SHAP, putting the facility on the map as a great American auto house. With its long history and skilled workforce, it was a facility no one in Southeast Michigan wanted to see shuttered when the recession hit and the company went into bankruptcy in 2009.

So it was with great relief that SHAP got another chance and the opportunity to build the all-new Chrysler 200. In 2010, Chrysler Group LLC announced it would invest nearly $850 million in a new state-of-the-art paint shop, as well as the installation of new machinery, tooling and material-handling equipment, at SHAP. The following year, it added $165 million to the investment for a one million-square-foot body shop.

Walbridge was hired as construction manager on the plant expansion. The work brought 1.9 million square feet of new floor space to SHAP, upping the plant’s square footage to roughly 5 million.

At 1,016,000 square feet, the new body shop is one of the largest in North America, and it was constructed with the goal of achieving LEED© Gold certification – the U.S. Green Building Council’s second highest designation through its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. Walbridge coordinated the shop’s single-story construction with Chrysler Group’s process installation team, taking measures to prepurchase everything needed for the job to meet long-lead times upfront. Thanks to synergy between Walbridge, Chrysler Group’s process teams and designers, the new body shop was completed in seamless fashion.

The three-level, one million square-foot paint shop was a bit more challenging, but Walbridge ensured that the shop was ready to be commissioned on time to launch the new vehicle. In order to meet the construction timeline, Walbridge rearranged its sequenced activities to focus on process related critical path items to allow process installations to begin prior to the building activities being completed. The team was able to meet the client’s requested deadlines and coordinated work activities with process installations over multiple shifts to alleviate stacked trades. The first 2015 Chrysler 200 rolled off the line in March of this year.

In addition to new state-of-the-art manufacturing areas, both the new body shop and paint shop feature office spaces, cafeterias and locker rooms.

Keeping the plant alive and expanding its production space allowed Chrysler Group to add more than 800 new jobs to support production of the new Chrysler 200. Now employing more than 3,000 people and about 1,000 sophisticated robots, SHAP remains a legendary piece of the Motor City economy, thanks in part to its expanded facilities.

Built For Good I 7

Built for less W

albridge’s team in Florida recently replaced two elementary schools as part of an 11-school capital improvement program for Orange County Public Schools.

Built in 1989 and 1992, respectively, John Young and Shingle Creek were two of four hard-bid school replacement projects for the district. The two new buildings – identical in appearance – were based on a prototype elementary school built for the district a year earlier. They’re both two stories, 83,150 square feet in size and boast all the 21st Century elementary school standards. Administration, the media center, cafeteria/auditorium, band and art rooms, and pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and primary classrooms are located on the first floor; the second floor holds primary and intermediate students classrooms, which accommodates the older elementary school students. The only differences in the two new school buildings are the location of their physical education areas and each building’s site utility infrastructure.

Both were constructed using energy-efficient materials, such as reflective roofing, and feature low-flush toilets, motionsensor lighting and other eco-friendly fixtures. They were built to achieve Green Globes International compliance, however, the Orange County Public Schools doesn’t pursue certification.

School buildings of this caliber would typically take 12 months to build. But the new John Young and Shingle Creek buildings were constructed on a fast-track schedule,

8 I Built For Good

Media center at Shingle Creek

completed and turned over in just eleven months to allow teachers and staff time to get in and set up prior to the start of the 2014-15 school year. John Young and Shingle Creek elementary schools were delivered using the hard bid delivery system, which provided savings to the client to the tune of approximately $2 million less than the prototype constructed a year earlier. Additionally, Walbridge was able to save the school district more than $370,000 on taxes, which is about 10 percent more than they typically save on projects like this. More than 35 percent of the project’s materials were purchased using the tax savings.

The new John Young Elementary School John Young auditorium

Lunch line at Shingle Creek

Walbridge Project Director Cranston Harris has been building schools in Florida for 12 years and has watched the process evolve in favor of the general contractor in some school districts. “From a project management standpoint, we’re fairly efficient in the way we manage projects nowadays,” he said.

“There are various systems and tools available today that help us coordinate.”

With the recent Orange County project, for example, the team had to condense mechanical, electric and information technology systems in a tight ceiling space. Through use of building information modeling (BIM), clashes were identified upfront.

The hard bid and fast track schedule brought about some challenge to what would normally be two standard construction projects. The lowest-price bidding component of hard bid delivery introduced Walbridge to subcontractors its teams hadn’t worked with before and others that would’ve otherwise not been selected based on lack of experience and familiarity with Walbridge processes. To address the challenge, Walbridge launched an accelerated schedule shortly after breaking ground. Workers were on site six days a week, some in 12-hour shifts.

“BIM has been around for a while, but it really helped in this project,” Harris said. “We took a foot out of the building’s height, and installations up there still went in as planned based on the research we did upfront.” Before, he said, teams couldn’t catch as many conflicts because the coordination involved manual systems overlaying and clashes could go without detection to the naked eye.

Walbridge’s team in Florida broke ground on John Young and Shingle Creek in September 2013. Both schools were turned over in early August 2014.

Built For Good I 9

Sunny common space inside

129,000

SQUARE FEET

446

AUGER CAST PILES

25

2

KILOWATTS SOLAR POWER

MICROTURBINES

5

STORIES

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MONTHS View from interior balcony

Oakland University Engineering Center Walks the Talk R

oughly 2,300 undergrad and graduate students in Oakland University’s School of Engineering and Computer Science programs are now benefitting from the high-tech accommodations of the Rochester, Mich., school’s new five-story engineering building.

Like many academic buildings, the new Oakland University Engineering Center (OUEC) houses project laboratories, student organization space, seminar rooms, administration and advising areas, faculty offices and a lobby. But this building also boasts a “Class 1000” cleanroom with a raised access floor, specialty liner panels and 44 Gebhardt fan filter units to provide required air changes. And what makes the OUEC most unique, perhaps rather appropriately, is its brilliantly engineered sustainable energy production system, designed to keep annual energy costs 30 to 40 percent below national standards. The 129,000-square-foot building was designed and constructed using some of the most innovative technologies on the market – much of which contribute to its goal of achieving LEED Gold certification through the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

SmithGroupJJr was the OUEC’s architect. Walbridge served as construction manager-at-risk.

For the job, Walbridge installed two 200-kilowatt gas-fired micro-turbine generators, which support a trigeneration power system for the building’s heating, cooling and electricity. The generators are expected to provide more than half of the buildings instantaneous power needs.

A photovoltaic solar panel system on the building’s penthouse roof supplements the micro-turbines’ capacity and is capable of generating 25 kilowatts of power to return to the campus grid. Every bit of space in the new building was engineered to provide function. Snowmelt systems, for example, were incorporated into exterior stairways at the building’s main entrances as a safety measure for students and faculty during winter months.

These are just some of the ways the OUEC is already living

up to the academic programming taught within its walls.

The humming and buzzing of sophisticated mechanical equipment is just part of the fun. To help prevent disruption, however, Walbridge installed floating floors inside the building’s mechanical penthouse to isolate vibration and noise. Roughly 450 auger cast piles were installed to construct the building’s foundation, which also allows for future expansion. Walbridge turned to electronic documents and building information modeling (BIM) to eliminate clashes and coordinate all the new systems.

The L-shaped concrete structure is five stories on one side and two stories on the other. Its striking curtain wall façade is complemented by metal and brick. Among Walbridge’s value-saving construction suggestions for the client was the use of standard structural steel instead of Fire-trol prefabricated fireproofed steel columns. The solution involved simulated steel column enclosures, just as effective of Fire-trol columns but for roughly $250,000 less.

During construction Walbridge maintained pedestrian and vehicular traffic around the site of the new OUEC, which is situated between three existing buildings in a heavily trafficked pedestrian area on campus. The first phase of the project (building the OUEC) was completed in just 20 months, in time for the start of the 2014 fall semester. For phase II of the job, Walbridge is renovating 14,000 square feet inside three different buildings on campus. The work will bring new restrooms and updated classroom space.

See more photos of the Oakland University Engineering Center >

Built For Good I 11

“

When you run a small team, you’ve got to have some fun – and you’ve got to be willing to do what it takes to help the company succeed.

12 I Built For Good

“

The 22,977-cubic-yard concrete pour at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in 1998 made headlines at the time for being the largest continuous pour in world history. It took a day to complete, but it created a memory that will last a lifetime for Ken Beaudoin and his team.

Ken Beaudoin

Climbing the mountain H

e was kind of a rebel in his heyday at Walbridge, and that might be why Ken Beaudoin is so respected. What he’s leaving behind after more than 44 years with the company, however, is more than a reputation.

When Walbridge Concrete Services launched in 1996, Beaudoin was appointed to lead it. Today WCS is one of the largest, most successful self-perform units under the Walbridge umbrella, and some would argue it will be Beaudoin’s legacy after his retirement at the end of this year.

As vice president and general manager of WCS, Beaudoin has spent the past two years making sure the unit will be left in good hands.

Beaudoin wasn’t asked to lead WCS only after proving himself on several big jobs – and, of course, and after putting in some time with the company. He began his construction career as a plumber’s apprentice in Kentucky. In 1970, Beaudoin was hired as a laborer for Walbridge’s Ford Flat Rock foundry project in Southeast Michigan. Three years later, he was promoted to superintendent. At the time his father, Ray Beaudoin, was working his own way up the Walbridge ladder.

“I remember getting word of my dad’s promotion to vice president. I was hauling sandbags, building a retention pond for a McLouth Steel project,” he recalled. “I asked, ‘So does that mean I can put down this sandbag?’ My superintendent laughed. No way.”

Nothing was ever handed to him because of his father’s success at the company. He’s proud of that. Another thing Beaudoin takes pride in is the six months of employment he’s got on Walbridge Chairman and CEO John Rakolta, Jr. “I’ve been here longer than John,” he boasted. “We argue about that all the time.”

His relationship with Rakolta was likely solidified after Beaudoin proved he could do “the impossible:” A recordbreaking continuous concrete pour for the Detroit Metropolitan Airport North Tunnel placement in 1998. It was quite possibly the most faith Rakolta had put into any one employee at the time; if the attempt failed, it could’ve cost the company millions. It was one of the most momentous occasions of Beaudoin’s career, and it lasted almost a full day.

“The record pour,” as it’s affectionately referred to here at Walbridge, took a year of planning and plenty of convincing from Beaudoin. First he had to get the nod from Rakolta, then he needed the green light from the client. He succeeded. But on the night before the pour, Beaudoin got a call. “John was having second thoughts. He was worried, ‘What if we fail?’ I told him, ‘I don’t fail.’”

Concrete for the Metro Airport pour was sourced from seven different plants. It should’ve taken 30 separate pours. So when you consider labor and logistics, the successful 23-hour

effort technically saved Walbridge money. Right? Beaudoin said that’s one way of looking at it.

“22,977 cubic yards in 22 hours and 57 minutes. There was no sane reason for us to do. I just wanted to break the record.”

One good reason in hindsight was the attention the pour received from media. Stories about its success were published in 14 different publications. Beaudoin’s team made T-shirts to tout the pour’s success. They read, “We climbed the mountain.”

Before that Beaudoin oversaw a handful of other big jobs.

Among them was the General Motors Orion Assembly Paint Plenum, which involved placing 56,000 cubic yards of concrete for an underground tunnel system. His team finished that job in just nine weeks, which, not surprisingly, was also a record at the time.

There are many significant jobs Beaudoin has been a part of for Walbridge. He couldn’t count how many he’s worked on exactly, but his detailed recollection of the big projects is impressive. And it’s nothing a small newsletter story could ever give justice to.

In 2006 Beaudoin was honored as the American Concrete Institute’s Concrete Constructor of the Year – a global award that’s typically presented to construction companies. That’s when he really reached the peak of the mountain. “It was by far the biggest achievement of my career.” At the time, Beaudoin was one the three individuals to have ever received the award.

One of his final responsibilities at Walbridge has been overseeing Senior Project Manager Jeremy Zeller’s team, which recently finished concrete work at the new Benteler Steel tube rolling mill in Shreveport, La. It was an extremely intricate job; an appropriate challenge to prepare Zeller to fill Beaudoin’s shoes.

He’ll stay on as an advisor for Walbridge, but it’s only clear seas ahead for Beaudoin. He’ll be sailing a 50’ catamaran around the Caribbean with his wife and some friends this winter. Other than that, he’ll be keeping an open schedule for the first time in a long time.

“I’ve had a great career at Walbridge, an aggressive career,” he said. “When you run a small team, you’ve got to have some fun – and you’ve got to be willing to do what it takes to help the company succeed.”

When asked what he’d tell the next generation of Walbridge employees, Beaudoin said: “Don’t be afraid to push the envelope. Believe in yourself, do what you think is right, and don’t give up on it.”

Built For Good I 13

What we’re building RECENTLY AWARDED

GETTING STARTED

UNDERWAY

WRAPPING UP

Tampa International Airport Bridge Replacement

University of Michigan Ross School of Business

Ford Kentucky Truck Plant Paint Shop

Kellogg Community College Binda Theater Renovations

As general contractor for the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, Walbridge’s team in Florida will be replacing 14 existing passenger boarding bridges with 13 new bridges at Tampa International Airport. The work involves new concrete foundations at three gates, installation of preconditioned air-handling units, fuel hydrant pits, visual docking guidance systems at two gates, insulated glycol lines with flexible hose connections and new apron markings.

Construction will be completed one gate at a time and is slated to begin in early November.

Walbridge is serving as a construction manager for the major renovation and addition to the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business. The project includes renovation of the Kresge Business Administration Library, demolition of the Computer and Executive Education Building, construction of a new academic building, and exterior finishes to Sam Wyly Hall, the Business Administration Executive Dormitory and Hill Street Parking Structure.

Walbridge is overseeing relocation of a 250-year-old oak tree to make way for the additions.

In close coordination with Durr, Walbridge is design-building a new paint shop at Ford Motor Company’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville.

With construction of the new 311,700-square-foot building, Walbridge is also constructing a conveyor trestle that originates at the existing body shop, travels over the existing paint shop and connects to the new paint shop. The new building features two penthouses, offices areas, break areas and locker rooms. The project is on track for completion in early 2015.

The Walbridge | Schweitzer Joint Venture managed construction of 22,000 square feet of additions and renovations at Kellogg Community College’s Binda Performing Arts Center.

Construction included the addition of a new lobby and storage area, complete renovation of all existing spaces, upgraded acoustics in the auditorium and new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. The glass curtain-wall lobby overlooks a reflecting pool in the heart of KCC’s Battle Creek campus.

People and Awards

W

albridge Chairman and CEO John Rakolta, Jr. was recently named a 2014 Black Family Development Honoree and was recognized by the Marketing & Sales Executives of Detroit with its 2014 Executive Leadership Award.

Also this past quarter, Walbridge Technical Engineer Joel Wallis achieved his Professional Engineer (P.E.) designation and Engineering Manager Tian Lo, P.E. achieved his LEED© Green Associate certification.

In September, Walbridge’s work on the rehabilitation of the historic Globe Building in Detroit was deemed the Engineering News-Record Midwest Best Project of the Year in the renovation category. Winning teams are being honored Nov. 20 in Chicago. The Globe project will now compete against other regional winners in the renovation category for ENR National’s Best of the Best Project of the Year. Our fingers are crossed.

14 I Built For Good

BUILDING IT PROFESSIONALS Marvin Ware (second from left) is the program manager of Information Technology at Golightly Davis Technical High School in Detroit. This past quarter, Walbridge donated a supply of laptop computers to support the IT hardware/software education classes he teaches to 9th- through 12thgraders at the school.

Walbridge’s IT team facilitated the donation and members of the group – David Stephanoff, Kevin Tracey II and LaSonia Patterson (pictured here left to right) – helped Ware with his pickup Sept. 5.

Fisher Body 21 is an early piece of the Walbridge Timeline

Stayin’ Alive Fisher Body Corporation was Walbridge’s first major automotive project. Construction began in 1916 (the year Walbridge was established) on what eventually became a 40-building, 3.7 million-square-foot complex that, in part, made up what’s now known as the Piquette Avenue Industrial Historic District in Detroit. By 1919, Fisher Body had a production capacity of 370,000 bodies a year. Its customers included several of today’s most well-known auto giants – Ford, Chevrolet, Cadillac – as well as Packard and Studebaker.

Fisher Body 21 – the last standing building in the complex – has sat empty for decades, falling victim to the elements,

Contact us

vandalism and to photographers fixated on the city’s ruined structures. Recently, however, it’s been making headlines as possible investors eye it to become something significant once again.

In October, several major news outlets reported a German investor was considering the property for redevelopment as a dance club. Plans would be modeled after a similar venue in Berlin, which reportedly was inspired by Detroit’s electronic music scene 20 years ago.

Connect with us:

SALES | Randy Abdallah, Executive Vice President 866.331.6585 | rabdallah@walbridge.com

Built For Good I 15

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