- About 200 houses were on land picked by Michigan to become a ‘megasite’ for a large factory
- State money will pay for their demolition, which started this year
- All told, about $31.6 million is going toward tearing down houses, clearing trees and other site leveling
A state lawmaker is calling for economic developers to pause demolitions of homes purchased through $261 million in state funds to build a speculative “megasite” in Genesee County.
Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, said he requested the halt out of “disappointment and disgust” that homes continue to be torn down near Bishop International Airport without public signs that a manufacturing company seeks to build on the property. The letter was addressed to the state-funded economic development group assembling the site, the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance.
A deal with Sandisk [NASDAQ: SNDK], negotiated among state officials and the local economic alliance without disclosure to township residents, fell through in July.
The semiconductor maker had considered a $63 billion factory complex on the property, with the state in turn promising over $20 billion in incentives, including a 50-year tax-free zone and the acreage at no cost to the spinoff of Western Digital valued at $28 billion.
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- Michigan officials defend $20B Sandisk incentive offer scrutinized by legislators
Demolition of dozens of the 200 or so houses rimming the farmland on the site started earlier in the year. Months later, bulldozers are still leveling them one by one as they’re bought and former owners move out. They range from ranches and older farmhouses to a newer subdivision.
“We have perfectly good farmland with crops that just grew this past summer, and houses that were lived in, and economic and societal benefits from that area,” Carra told Bridge Michigan. “Why would we continue to demolish houses and tear apart valuable assets?”
“Especially if we don’t have a guarantee of a route forward?”
But the developers — an arm of the Flint and Genesee Group business development organization — say they’re proceeding as directed by the state. Their work is to make the property turnkey for a company that would employ thousands.
“Our team is very proud of the work we do every day to assemble and prepare a site in Genesee County that will be attractive to an advanced manufacturer,” said Tyler Rossmaessler, executive director of the economic alliance.
The megasite comprises more than 1,300 acres in Mundy Township, southwest of Flint’s Bishop Airport, as well as in Flint Township. The property footprint includes an elementary school, while hundreds of additional homes surround the megasite.
So far, about 1,270 acres have been purchased with the overall price topping $100 million, according to documents released to Bridge under the Freedom of Information Act.
About $31.6 million of taxpayer money is expected to fund demolition of structures on the property.
The Flint and Genesee Group Foundation, an arm of the Flint and Genesee Group, received the funding through the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) Fund, which lawmakers voted to defund this year.
The $2 billion economic development initiative run through the Michigan Economic Development Corp. sought to add large-scale employers to the state, including through land development.
But SOAR turned controversial among lawmakers, as residents of communities targeted for mega-deals pushed back.
Among others, a group of Marshall residents remains in litigation over the Ford Motor Co. BlueOval Battery park in that community. A state deal that funded a $25 million land buy for Gotion Inc. recently went into default, leaving the state to seek the return of the money. And residents opposing a megasite in Eagle Township, near Lansing, also fought township officials who quietly supported that effort.
Many Mundy Township residents hope for the same outcome in their community, despite the wave of land purchases with state support. Several residents have testified in front of the state House Subcommittee on Corporate Subsidies and State investments, which Carra co-chairs. Also appearing have been MEDC officials and Rossmaessler, who point to countywide business support for the megasite.
Unclear, as some lawmakers now seek to repeal SOAR, is whether the Flint-area megasite could be offered to a company for free, as outlined in the defunct Sandisk deal.
Decisions on incentive packages are “tied to the opportunity presented for a site, so at minimum, it would be premature to say whether the property could be part of an award for a project that may or may not exist,” MEDC spokesperson Danielle Emerson said.
The original funding was not tied to an end-user, she added, so “what is happening in Mundy is site readiness in real-time.”
The land is now marketed for sale, but without an asking price, a move that Emerson said will “maintain flexibility. “
Carra said that using the $261 million megasite property for a future corporate subsidy shouldn’t be necessary, particularly given Rossmaessler’s statements that the property is the “best site in America” due to its size.
A property that valuable “would not require desperate marketing schemes,” Carra said. “An asset typically draws substantial interest on its own merit.”
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