- The Mundy Township megasite is divisive among neighbors but still has plenty of support from business leaders
- They say it could provide a silver bullet to the Flint area, where wages and jobs have plummeted
- Boosters hope to lure an advanced manufacturing factory to the site
MUNDY TOWNSHIP — Genesee County business leaders remain bullish on attracting an advanced manufacturing facility on a megasite here, touting the efforts as a moonshot to boost the economy.
Last year, the county almost landed a massive semiconductor factory on land assembled near Flint Bishop Airport. Although the deal fell apart, proponents say that 1,300-acre property funded by $261 million in taxpayer money still promises opportunity.
“Our goal with this site is to reverse decades of job loss and sluggish population growth,” project manager Tyler Rossmaessler, executive director of the Flint and Genesee Economic Alliance, said during a recent online presentation.
Rossmaessler was among local business leaders who leaped into action in late 2021, when Michigan allocated $1 billion in incentive funding to attract big economic development deals.
The timing came amid a national push for electrification and onshoring — and offered the Flint area a chance to overcome decades-long disinvestment, CS Mott Foundation CEO Ridgway White told Bridge Michigan.
“Michigan seemed to keep losing out on new opportunities because of a lack of sites,” White recalled.
“We felt there was an opportunity to really move the needle in a positive direction for jobs for people of Flint,” he added.
(Editor’s note: The Mott Foundation is one of several funders of Bridge Michigan. The foundation had no influence in reporting, writing or editing this story.)
State Rep. Jasper Martus, D-Flushing, pushed for the project, noting in 2024 that Genesee County once had “the highest median income in the state of Michigan and one of the highest in the entire country.”
As recently as 1979, Flint ranked second nationwide among cities in average pay (today’s equivalent of $90,000 a year) thanks to General Motors, which employed 80,000 workers countywide.
Related:
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- Michigan Gov. Whitmer pushes for subsidies, as $261M megasite awaits deal
- Mundy Township megasite won’t house data center; demolitions continue
- Hope, anger on display at town hall as $261M megasite forges ahead near Flint
Today, the city’s population has fallen in half to 80,000 and per-capita incomes countywide have plummeted to $35,000 (compared to $63,000 statewide) and General Motors employment in the county has dropped more than tenfold to about 7,600.
Add on the 2014 Flint water crisis that exposed thousands of children to water contaminated with lead, and the region is desperate for better-paying jobs, boosters said.
“People understand that Flint and Genesee County need something new and need opportunity,” White said.
The Mundy Township megasite is just south of Flint Bishop Airport, which is within city limits. Officials still hope to attract as many as 10,000 jobs on the site, nearly doubling the county’s manufacturing employment.
Pulling it together
Plans for the Mundy Township megasite gelled in early 2022 under oversight of Tim Herman, CEO of the Flint & Genesee Group that oversees the chamber of commerce and an economic development arm. Support came early on from the Mott Foundation, which contributed $750,000 for land purchases.
Herman formed Maple and Hill LLC to pursue the land; he’s the sole managing member, while Rossmaessler is leading the project.
Genesee County business, education and government leaders joined the cause. They inked NDAs to hash out the terms of converting the property into what state economic development leaders touted as having “all the assets an industrial user requires.”
Among other suitors, talks with Western Digital for a semiconductor factory complex accelerated in spring 2024. The chip-maker was one of the largest projects still shopping for a site that would allow federal subsidies to stack atop a local offer.
A deal was struck in summer 2024, just as the state Legislature approved $259.25 million in new funding on top of $2 million already spent to prepare the megasite.
“We’ve felt for a long time that we’re on the precipice of a renaissance,” said Karima Amlani, president of the Hurley Foundation and a member of the economic alliance’s advisory committee. “The megasite for advanced manufacturing is … that catalyst.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined the push, sending signals that she wanted to hold onto large-scale incentive policy. By spring 2025, her speeches seemed to affirm to Sandisk, Western Digital’s spinoff that would use the site, that Michigan wanted semiconductor fabs and the governor wanted them started by the end of her term this year.
Fabrication plants — or fabs — would make “an entire region an economic magnet,” she said in speeches.
Documents obtained by Bridge show that in 2028, Sandisk promised its direct hires would total nearly 2,000. Among them, one-third would make less than $50,000 per year. Another third would be over $100,000 per year.
Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, questioned the megasite assembly and Sandisk deal as co-chair of the House Committee on Corporate Subsidies and State Investments.
Megasite planners had polled Genesee County residents in 2023 and reported that 73% of countywide residents voiced support for new manufacturing, while 22% opposed it. Opposition was higher in the immediate area of the megasite.
Carra, who went door-to-door in the region, noted that it was easier for people in Flint, Burton or Grand Blanc to appreciate hopes for job gains.
“However, their level of knowledge about the situation was substantially lower than what they have in Mundy Township or (neighboring) Flint Township,” Carra said, where concerns about the environment, public silence and the leveling of neighborhoods topped their lists.
Today
By summer 2025, development leaders — who had taken to calling themselves “Team Michigan” — were on the verge of landing a whopper of a deal for the megasite, inking four early-stage contract extensions.
Then Sandisk walked away, expressing little confidence that it could secure $16 billion from the US government on top of the $27 billion promised by Michigan. Whitmer claimed the company abandoned the plan due to “national economic turmoil” from new tariffs.
Losing the deal with Sandisk “was devastating to … all who wanted to see this once-in-a-lifetime investment in our region,” Rossmaessler said last fall in an email obtained by Bridge.
The megasite property is still on the market.
County business leaders remain committed, said Rossmaessler, who declined an interview but spoke extensively about the project during a public online town hall in February.
The baseline goal is to attract an advanced manufacturer that will create at least 2,000 jobs and invest at least $2 billion.
Besides land in Mundy Township, the economic alliance owns property adjacent to rail lines in Flint Township. Some holdouts still haven’t sold; that number is shrinking.
The property is the largest available site in Michigan, Rossmaessler said, and up to four times larger than any available redevelopment site in Flint.
The size “makes us incredibly competitive, because the kind of project we’re seeking requires a lot of space,” he added.
White, who launched the Mott Foundation’s megasite funding support to boost Genesee County, holds onto hope that a deal will come soon.
“Flint beat out every other site in the nation,” he said.
“We can’t lose sight of the accomplishment of putting together a site and having a site that’s really ready,” White said, “so that Michigan is on the radar for the first time in decades for new industry.”
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