Why would a building for a company that’s been out of business for decades and still not occupied by another business still be standing? I would have thought if it couldn’t be converted to something else it would have eventually been demolished to save on property taxes.
You're assuming everyone pays all appropriate taxes.
I grew up near the area. There are a lot of abandoned buildings and warehouses in Detroit. I'm sure it's similar in other big cities.
The true owner must be doing “something” there. He seems to appreciate Mr Hill's presence.
The city is bankrupt and cannot afford to demolish the empty houses and buildings in its environs. So it sits.
Packard did build great cars, though.
Packard ended production there in 1956, but there were dozens of little companies still operating in the complex until 1997, when the city foreclosed on the property and ordered 87 tenants to leave. Then it was left to rot. The only others left now are a chemical processing company, someone selling exterior lighting, a few squatters now and then, and a lot of wild animals.
http://www.detroitblog.org/?p=1949
I don't know if the property taxes would be reduced or not but to demolish all the standing buildings on that site and the removal of same would cost in the millions of dollars.......
I worked for a company on Detroit's east side, the corner of Conner and Charlevoix. On the east side of the street, between Charlevoix and Jefferson is the Chrysler Jefferson assembly plant.
I remember watching the rebuilding and expansion of the plant which also included the removal of the warehouses across the street. Once all of them had been removed, along with all the concrete flooring and driveways, then the environmental clean-up had to begin.
All the soil that the buildings stood on had to be removed due to the oil and chemicals that had run off and leached into the ground over the decades. They had huge excavation trucks constantly digging up and hauling off the dirt, with all the workers forced to wear hazmat suits. Once it was cleaned up sufficiently, they then had to truck in all new dirt before they could start rebuilding. Just the clean up alone had to cost in the tens of millions of dollars alone.
So to answer you question, the cost of demolishing and removing those buildings alone would be cost prohibitive let alone having to also be responsible for the environmental clean up.