The saga of Detroit’s Packard Plant continues, as a city-owned portion of the plant south of Grand Boulevard is being demolished.
An eagle-eyed photographer Felicia Fullwood first caught wind of it.
Then, I went down to get more details and get a bearing on which part of the plant, as we’ve been doing in-depth reporting on this property.
This part of the plant is listed as being owned by the city of Detroit. The demolition contractor is Homrich.
Most of the property is owned by Arte Express, including the section north of Grand Boulevard and almost all of the plant south of Grand Boulevard and across Bellevue.
If you’ll remember, the plant made a lot of news around town when the pedestrian bridge spanning Grand Boulevard fell to the ground. One side of the bridge was owned by Arte Express, the development company owned by Peruvian Fernando Palazuelo. The other half, the city of Detroit as it was connected to a city-owned building.
We first reported that the Packard properties owned by Art Express are on Wayne County’s potential foreclosure list as it owes bills to the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department from 2016. The Freep then followed up the next day and got a confirmed number of about $185,000 from Wayne County.
The drop-dead date on paying off the bills or making arrangements is March 31, 2019, with hearings later this month.
This matters to taxpayers because of reports there was a $300,000 loan and an $80,000 grant to fund the administration building redevelopment from Wayne County, and $5.2 million in reimbursements possible for brownfield cleanup of the site.
Here are photos and video from today.
