- State economic developers are prioritizing land development as a job attraction tool.
- Nearly $1B has been awarded so far under Gretchen Whitmer, who is seeking $150M more this year
- Critics question the value of the incentives and say some deals are too secretive
Michigan economic developers are moving to build a reserve of site-ready parcels for business attraction, as the state still seeks a company to use its largest speculative land buy near Flint.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in February requested another $100 million in a supplemental budget for an undetermined spec site, plus $50 million for site work on a parcel with an identified company.
The new funding would come atop of $817 million already committed for larger-parcel site readiness.
Whitmer’s request comes as the state’s Michigan Economic Development Corp. focuses on attracting large projects in key sectors, including chip-makers, mobility companies and the defense industry.
“Site readiness for sites of all sizes remains the No. 1 need identified by businesses and site selectors nationwide,” Danielle Emerson, spokesperson for the MEDC, told Bridge.
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She added: “Making our state more competitive because we have more ready-to-invest sites is exactly (the state’s funding) vision.”
Here are considerations about the ongoing site readiness initiative:
No. 1: Michigan’s biggest site-ready property is still available
Michigan has spent $261 million in taxpayer funding to assemble a 1,300 parcel in Mundy Township near Flint Bishop Airport. The project involved the acquisition and eventual demolition of 165 homes and possible relocation of an elementary school.
Unlike other state-led land acquisition efforts, the project was completely speculative and had no end user.
However, the state had been under a preliminary contract with Sandisk, which had planned to build a $63 billion semiconductor manufacturing complex on the site with about $27 billion in state incentives.
Funding for the spec site came from the $2 billion Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) Fund.
The MEDC also used SOAR to award a collective $87 million to 18 smaller sites in 2024. About $43.4 million for 15 of the sites since fall 2025, according to the most recent reporting by the MEDC. None of the allocated money was spent in the last fiscal year on three of the sites, including an industrial park in Lowell, near Grand Rapids, recently proposed for a data center.
Michigan also uses a ranking system for sites, with some added to the MI Sites site readiness inventory.
No. 2: Large scale state land buys have been controversial
SOAR was launched in 2022 to increase what the state could offer for big projects, both in cash grants and site readiness funds.
Since then, dissatisfaction with Michigan’s large economic development subsidies has escalated among Democrats and Republicans. SOAR was defunded in this year’s budget, but remains on the books with some lawmakers seeking to repeal it.
Deals for Ford Motor Co. in Marshall and Gotion Inc. near Big Rapids prompted community pushback. Outrage over a proposed semiconductor factory also prompted the state to cancel plans to form a megasite west of Lansing in Eagle Township.
Using taxpayer dollars to attract massive industrial development “completely removes agency from the local community,” said Marjorie Steele executive director of the Economic Development Responsibility Alliance of Michigan.
The most common complaint when a project became known to the general public, Steele said, is that residents are “left out of the conversation.”
No. 3: Who determines a property will become a site for development?
Site readiness land identification starts with “communities who have sites they have identified for industrial development,” Emerson said. Some also are referred to the state by Consumers Energy or DTE Energy.
With SOAR or build-ready state funding, Emerson said, communities can determine land use “in a way they feel best works for them.”
“Site-ready” in recent years has meant increasingly larger sites of hundreds of acres up to megasite of 1,000 acres or more.
The scale of those developments often requires greenfields and farmland, economic developers say, due to ease and speed of construction.
Grassroots advocates often suggest more site readiness of former industrial sites, since they can be located where the job loss is acute. Economic developers say their smaller size, legacy contamination, and other issues can be roadblocks to the quick development companies seek today.
No. 4: Site-ready land may be a corporate giveaway, not sold
Legislators and the public are both learning since SOAR was passed that the state-funded site readiness deals can lead to “free” land for a company as part of the state’s subsidy package.
In the Mundy Township offer to Sandisk, the cleared land was promised at no cost to the company. The MEDC has stacked land with cash, tax breaks and other sweeteners when making subsidy offers.
House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, told Bridge that land preparation makes sense for a state to lead. However, he added, if the state is turning over land that cost it millions of dollars, “I don’t think they should pay the companies (more) money.”
No. 5: The future is murky
Megasites grew out of a push for federal funding pushes for electrification and onshoring of technology production during the administration of former President Joe Biden.
The state’s goal is “to have a diverse portfolio of investment-ready sites of different sizes and uses available at any given time,” Emerson said.
Over the past five years, several sites have been explored for megasites. They include Shiawassee County, Monroe County and Jackson County. Washtenaw County was desirable for one, documents indicate, but no site was pinpointed.
No. 6: Lawmakers say they want to reduce site secrecy
Expectations are changing among lawmakers when the state is funding big deals in communities, with some pinpointing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and other secrecy as a concern.
Local and regional officials often are asked to sign NDAs among the largest deals; in Mundy Township, land sellers also were expected to sign them.
“They keep it under wraps,” Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, told Bridge of the largest state-funded land assembly. “They know that it’s a project that the community is not going to want.”
Hall, the House speaker, said economic developers instead could approach communities “on the front end and explain what they’re trying to do and build partnership and support.”
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