Northpoint Eyes Former AMC HQ Site for Industrial Space

By Dennis Burck

The complex that was once Detroit’s manufacturing backbone for nearly 100 years looks to be on the chopping block after eight years of vacancy. Northpoint Development along with the City of Detroit announced plans to demolish the gargantuan 1.5 million square foot complex to make way for Class A Industrial space in hopes of attracting an auto supplier to call the site home. If approved by Detroit City Council, the complex’s epitaph will be a long one.

Refrigerators, Helicopters and More

The AMC Headquarters building had humble beginnings as the home to one of the first refrigerator manufacturers in 1927. Engineer Nathaniel Wales established the Kelvinator Corporation in Detroit in 1916, which would manufacture the first contained household refrigerator system in 1925. After the company boomed with this invention, it needed a space to manufacture this now household staple.

Architect Amedeo Leoni was hired by Kelvinator to design the building with an office complex upfront flanked by a 3-story factory in the back. The structure, with an impressive tower front façade, was completed in 1936. Inscribed on the main entrance was a quote from Kelvinator’s namesake Lord Kelvin – “I’ve thought of a better way.”

By 1940, Kelvinator merged with Nash Motors to become Nash-Kelvinator. The new company would design fridges iconic to the mid-century aesthetic, with streamlined curves and car-style pull doors. The same year, the company expanded the site to have over one million square feet of manufacturing space.

The “Arsenal of Democracy” years of WW2 saw the sprawling factory and Nash-Kelvinator contracted out to build helicopters for the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. The site was even home to a small airfield to test the aircraft. By 1944, 262 helicopters were manufactured there.

The building’s namesake only became a reality nearly 30 years after its founding. In 1954, Hudson motors merged with Nash-Kelvinator to form American Motors Corporation and AMC was born.

By 1960, AMC was selling nearly half a million cars per year. In 1968, all Kelvinator appliance operations were sold off, making the operations strictly automotive.

The ‘60s and ‘70s at AMC bred most of the muscle car classics that can still be seen cruising the Woodward Dream Cruise. The top-of-the-line AMC Javelin came with a tire-squealing 315 horsepower V8. The AMC Pacer was marketed as one of the first “compact” cars.

The first death knell of the AMC Headquarters building came in 1973 when AMC announced it would be moving its engineering operations to the neighboring city of Southfield.

In 1987, Chrysler bought out AMC, putting an end to the company’s independence from the “Big Three.”

The AMC complex was rebranded as the Jeep and Truck Engineering Center, employing over 3,000 Chrysler workers. The long-running Dodge Ram and Jeep Grand Cherokee models were first designed at the center.

1996 saw Chrysler attempt a gradual move from the Jeep and Truck Engineering Center to its research and design center in Auburn Hills. The company was still in the process of moving when the recession struck. 2007 saw Chrysler file for bankruptcy and the building was liquidated in 2009. Around 900 Chrysler workers still worked at the plant during that year.

Hope for renewal came when Detroit businessman Terry Williams purchased the property for a little over $2 million to be converted into a treatment center for children with Autism. However, Williams had other plans. Gutting the buildings for spare parts in 2012, Williams scrapped the 1940s addition without proper training or equipment, releasing a massive amount of asbestos and ozone-depleting substances in the process. This act violated the Clean Air Act and Williams was sentenced to serve 27 months in prison in 2013. Afterward, the city of Detroit seized the building and it has remained vacant since.

The New Development

Northpoint Development is a key player in large-scale developments within the state. It brokered the deal last year to redevelop the Cadillac Stamping Plant, another former industry titan demolished to make room for a 683,000 square-foot Class A Industrial Space. This space was acquired by seating manufacturer Lear in August 2021.

Under a deal with the city, Northpoint would acquire the former AMC property for $6 million and seek tax, development incentives. The project would need to go through multiple Detroit City Council approvals in regards to tax abatements, brownfield incentives, and the deal itself before moving forward.

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About the Author

Dennis Burck, Construction Association of Michigan’s Prebid Reporter and Editorial Writer, earned a BA in journalism from Wayne State University in 2017, spending two years as a new development and general assignment reporter for the Lansing City Pulse. At the Pulse, Burck was tasked with writing the paper’s “New in Town” column, tracking commercial and city developments from construction to completion. His work also appeared in the Detroit Metro Times, Metro Parent, Model D Media and the National Endowment for the Humanities’ magazine.