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By Alan Miller
Lansing Community Newspapers


General Motors Corp. will tear down the idled Lansing Craft Centre and Lansing Metal Center in Lansing Township.

The Detroit-based automaker also will raze the Oldsmobile office building south of Interstate 496 in downtown Lansing.

The company began notifying neighborhood groups and employees after the decision was made earlier this week, GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter said Friday.



Demolition work is slated to begin in midsummer and will take about 18 months, she said. After that, GM will look at redevelopment plans.

Eric Henning, GM's regional director for government relations, said the age, maintenance costs and building configurations are "significant detriments to potential redevelopment" for industrial use.

"Providing a clean slate is the best option to make this surplus property more marketable," Henning said.

The Craft Centre, whose last vehicle was the Chevrolet SSR, ceased production a year ago.

Carpenter said that while the tooling and equipment at the site were state-of-the-art, the building was "not how you design a modern manufacturing facility."

She said one of the biggest priorities during the demolition will be to minimize the impact on neighbors near the facilities.

The company and its contractors will take steps to minimize noise, control dust and avoid traffic disruptions, she said.

GM already is tearing down the Lansing Car Assembly plant.

Though Carpenter said GM plans to work with local government and community groups to find ways to redevelop the Metal Center, Craft Centre and Oldsmobile properties, local officials are not waiting to begin their planning.

Lansing Township Development Director Steven Hayward is working with a group from the Urban Planning Department at Wayne State University to identify opportunities for the sites.

The township will hold a public meeting about the future of the site Thursday.

GM opened the Craft Centre on Saginaw Street in 1940 to make munitions for World War II. It was producing the now-discontinued Chevrolet SSR when it was shuttered in March 2006; the plant then employed 400 people.

Across the street, the metal center once employed 1,200. GM opened the plant in 1952 to make jets during the Korean War and shuttered it in November.

The Oldsmobile office building, meanwhile, lost its nameplate in December when GM removed the brand's sign from atop the building. It had housed the division's marketing operations until 1998, when the work was moved to Detroit.

GM produced the last Oldsmobile car in April 2004.

Lansing State Journal business editor Kevin Polzin and staff writer Jeremy W. Steele contributed to this report.