Interstate 75: North America's Industrial Corridor (cover) Florida Georgia from Chattanooga to Knoxville Kentucky Ohio Detroit Request Information |
Automotive Continues to
In fact, Flint is the 1998 winner of General Motors' $500 million inline six-cylinder engine plant, which is located adjacent to its old V-8 Engine plant. GM anticipates knocking Toyota out of the best manufacturer of automotive engines spot with the start up of this new facility. The facility is designed with a cleaner, standardized layout in order to be leaner, more efficient and provide better flexibility in its manufacturing. Flint Engine South, as the facility is called, is also much more compact than GM's earlier plants, totaling a mere 718,000 sq. ft. (66,704 sq. m.), as compared to the older plants of 2 million sq. ft. (185,806 sq. m.).
In other southeast Michigan towns, New Venture Gear chose Auburn Hills for its new world headquarters, creating 159 new jobs, while work has begun on General Motors' Truck Product Center (TPC) in Centerpoint Business Campus in Pontiac.
Automotive is such a major component of the Detroit and Flint communities that all other industries that are starting to bloom there are typically auto-related. Take for example Vitech, the plastics company that opened up a 150,000-sq.-ft. (13,935-sq.-m.) manufacturing facility in Detroit last year. Vitech will make blow-molded plastic gasoline tanks for automotive use at its new plant, where it will employ 350 people.
"One thing that needs to be pointed out is that people still have the mindset that when you talk about the automobile industry, you're talking about assembly lines and production," says Bill Bassitt, vice president with the Detroit Regional Economic Partnership. "The phenomenon that we're seeing here, however, is many of these companies that are choosing southeast Michigan to locate in are the technology-driven companies, those that are involved in research and development, design and testing."
For example, Jabil Circuit, which chose Auburn Hills for its new manufacturing facility over a site in Mexico. Jabil designs and manufactures electronic circuit boards and systems for international original equipment manufacturers as well as customers in the automotive, personal computer, peripheral and communication markets. The new plant will create 1,088 new jobs for Auburn Hills. "Michigan's business friendly environment and the strategic importance of Jabil's automotive business were factors in our decision to locate a new manufacturing plant in Oakland County," says Randy Haight, vice president of business development with Jabil Circuit.
Southeast Michigan is also a prime spot for distribution/warehouse operations. "We've had a lot of new sitings along [I-75] -- a lot of large warehouse/distribution facilities," says Dennis Duncanson, acting director of economic development with Detroit Edison Co. "These are speculative multi-tenant facilities, and last year we had Cabella's locate a big manufacturing and showroom for sporting goods in one facility in Dundee [Mich]."
Webvan Group, on the other hand, chose Detroit for its new 900-job distribution center. The e-commerce company's 300,000-sq.-ft. (27,871-sq.-m.) distribution center will serve the Detroit metro area.
Much of southeast Michigan's growth, says Bassitt, whether it be in distribution, high-tech or automotive, is in part a result of the area's access to I-75. "The automobile industry has moved down the I-75 corridor and really runs the length of its entirety at least through Tennessee," he explains. "And of course the movement of goods between Ohio and Kentucky and places south of that up to Michigan and vice versa is certainly very noticeable. Interestingly enough, I-75 comes into western Detroit right at the Ambassador Bridge, and when you consider the 33 million vehicles that cross from Canada into the United States, you begin to see how important the I-75 corridor is to the overall industrial base of this country."
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The final stretch of the I-75 corridor leaves the Toledo market and heads north through Detroit and Flint, Mich., before trekking off to the Canadian border. And although it may be the end of the north-south corridor, it's also the birthplace of the automotive cluster that has located along the corridor. Detroit is, in fact, the Motor City, and Flint hasn't fared too poorly in the automotive ring either.
