I'm not sure how this panned out:
The construction of the Packard factory did not go unnoticed by either the press or the industry: it was the most attractive manufacturing facility in Detroit and certainly the most advanced in the world for building automobiles. Motor Age noted not only Kahn’s structural innovations, but also the building’s more “human” attributes: “When a man buys a Packard he gets a machine that was made by workmen who toil in pleasant surroundings, for if there is one thing more than another which characterizes the new factory…it is the bright, clean and cheerful aspect of the different departments.”
Well, Packard has long since come and gone, and thanks to the slow sinking of Detroit into the sea (it’s only slow because the ocean’s so far away), the building still stands. For a little while, as there’s demolition looming. But before the wreckers come, the original main entrance had damn well better come down in one piece, and it’s going up for auction at RM’s Meadowbrook sale in Rochester, Michigan, on August 2nd. “Buyer will be responsible for the lot and its safekeeping and removal immediately following the auctioneer’s declaration of sale,” they tell us, “although a contractor will be available for immediate engagement to disassemble and pack the facade on pallets for shipment to the buyer’s car building.” It’s actually owned by a well-known Detroit-area collectible car dealer, but we don’t know if he’s got the whole building, or somehow just the facade.