General Motors’ decision this week to shutter five North American plants may signal a long-term shift toward cars that are heavily computerized and maybe even autonomous.
But the more immediate effect is millions of square feet of suddenly vacant industrial real estate.
In Detroit alone, there will be 6.2 million square feet suddenly on the market.
That would be a blow to the region’s industrial real estate market, which has been red-hot the last several years with low vacancy rates and rising rents — with the automotive industry in the driver’s seat of that surge. It could also have a downstream effect as suppliers — a key industrial market occupant — feel the pinch,” according to Crain’s Detroit Business.
In Ohio, GM will close the sprawling, 6.2 million-square-foot plant in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, which currently makes the Chevy Cruze sedan.
In Baltimore, GM opened the White Marsh plant in December 2000. Its operations are made up of two facilities: a 471,000-square-foot transmission factory and a 110,500-square-foot addition that has made electric motors, according to the Baltimore Sun.
See a complete list of the plants published in Bloomberg/BusinessWeek