An investor from Chicago could actually gain control of the Packard Plant next week. If he is successful in carrying out his vision to turn the complex into housing and businesses, it would be by far the most remarkable redevelopment project Detroit has seen.
Bill Hults plans to buy and redevelop Detroit's biggest industrial ruin and take it out of the realm of scrappers, graffiti artists and urban explorers and turn it into "The Villages of Packard."
Hults is trying to complete the deal before Wayne County includes it in its auction of foreclosed properties on September 13. After that, he risks the chance that other investors could buy up parcels of the Packard Plant site.
Hults can take control of the property next week by paying Wayne County nearly $1 million to cover its delinquent taxes.
Said Deputy Wayne County Treasurer David Szymanski: “I believe that it will go through.”
Szymanski continued: “We are really hoping that this guy can turn this around and turn it into something valuable, and it’ll take off. If that happens, it’ll be just spectacular, but if it doesn’t happen, we want to be in a position where it’s not going to sit there vacant for another forty years.”
Hults walked the crumbling complex and shared his vision with Dave LewAllen and the WXYZ-TV Detroit 2020 team.
"You look at this and it’s just 3,500,000 square feet of … ugly. And we’re going to take it and we’re going to turn it into something very, very special,” Hults said.
“I look at this and I see this finished. I see windows in here. I see a park here, I see people coming and going to work, I see maybe a restaurant right down here. This is where people are sitting to have coffee on Sunday morning.”
The complex of 43 buildings, which stretch nearly a mile from north to south, is located in a desolate neighborhood near I-94 and Mt. Elliott on Detroit's East Side. It stopped turning out Packards -- the Escalade of the 1930s -- in 1956, and after about 40 years as a declining industrial mall, it fell into disuse about a decade ago.
The Packard complex today is a lawless playground that burns so frequently that the Detroit Fire Department generally lets the blazes burn out rather than venturing into the dangerous grounds. Various filmmakers have used Packard as a set in recent years.
Hults says he’ll put up fencing and hire 24-hour security guards for the area. He says he may even sell $20 tickets to tour the tunnels beneath the site.
That covered bridge over E. Grand Boulevard that used to hold the Packard assembly line? Hults says that will become a coffee shop from which customers can watch the factor's renaissance.
