The successful bidder for Detroit’s Packard plant announced today that she and her investors plan to transform the abandoned and decayed auto factory into a modern production facility for modular homes and offices, JC Reindl reports in the Free Press.
“Modular homes and offices will be constructed on the site and shipped all over the world,” said Davis Marshall, a spokesperson for the winning bidder, Dr. Jill Van Horn of Ennis, Texas.
A family practice doctor, Dr. Van Horn won the property tax foreclosure auction on Friday with a bid of $6,038,000.
Today’s announcement is the first explanation from Van Horn regarding her interest in the Packard plant. The statement says Van Horn is joined by unnamed “partners and investors from Detroit, Wall Street and international firms.”
Their goal is to transform the 35-acre site “into a new economic center on the east side of Detroit,” the statement said. “Modular homes and offices will be constructed on the site and shipped all over the world. Building supplies will also be made there."
It would seem to be a huge undertaking. The 3.5-million-square-feet plant complex. composed of over 40 buildings, is a crumbling mass of broken cement, dumped trash and rooftop trees.
Harry Arnold of iTV Detroit recently shot the following video at the plant with his quad-copter drone cam.
