Ford to remake Detroit's most famous ruin

[WNYresident]

Now this is cool. Don't know who's money is going to be used just yet

Ford to remake Detroit's most famous ruin

If you've ever been to Detroit, you've probably seen Michigan Central Station. And you've probably wondered why someone didn't just tear it down.

Visible from miles around, the 18-story building has been abandoned for decades and is, literally, a mere shell of its former self.

Now Ford has purchased the crumbling building and on Tuesday will announce plans to make it part of a major technology center.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/17/news...ion/index.html

[grump]

Imagine what it would be like to have a private company step up with a plan for the Central Terminal, one that doesn’t involve wads and wads of taxpayer money, the elixir that fuels the corruption in WNY.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

Imagine what it would be like to have a private company step up with a plan for the Central Terminal, one that doesn’t involve wads and wads of taxpayer money, the elixir that fuels the corruption in WNY.

Wouldn't happen. You can bet your lunch there is not some group of entitled non-profit pests trying to tell Ford what they can and can't do with the Terminal.

[WNYresident]

From Tim Kennedy Facebook

New life for an old train station; it's a concept I believe can happen here in Buffalo. Progress like this is exactly why I pushed to secure $5 million for the Buffalo Central Terminal: to shore up the site and get it ready for development. While we wait for that day to come, the site's immediate future is more secure now that we have this funding in place.

He referred to this page

Ford Motor Co. (F) is now the owner of Detroit's architecturally grandest, if most dilapidated, transportation hub. A spokesperson for the automaker confirmed that it has purchased the Michigan Central Depot, which opened in 1913 and closed in 1988.

Vacant for 30 years, the 500,000 square-foot train station -- designed by the same architectural firms behind Grand Central Terminal in New York and with a main waiting room built to resemble an ancient Roman bathhouse -- is widely seen as a symbol of Detroit's decades-long industrial decay.

Ford is reportedly planning to convert the blighted 18-story station into a technology campus. The company recently started relocating members of its electric and self-driving vehicle units into a refurbished factory near the station.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ford-bu...on-2018-06-11/

[grump]

Kennedy is already pissing away $5 million, that’s right, $5 million, to “shore up” a site for which there is no prospect for redevelopment. As I said before, Kennedy is a stooge. Anyone know who owns Central Terminal? Seems to me the only thing “Terminal” about it is it’s condition.

[Genoobie]

You can be sure that Ford intends to make a lot of money on this move. They wouldn't be spending otherwise. If the city had invested in it, they would be keeping the building. If Ford does it and uses various grants and preservation money, they can essentially rehab an asset, partly on the taxpayer dime and then sell it and return zero to the investors. Since the decay occurred as a result of disinvestment Ford is in a win-win situation. They got out of investing to keep Detroit's assets from decaying in the first place and then they buy the asset for a song, invest some money into it and then sell it for big $. It's a pretty obvious pattern that has bee repeated in the history of the US cities.