If all goes according to plan, an Indiana commercial developer will use the site of a former General Motors stamping facility to build a 15,000 seat amphitheater. The plan already has its skeptics, though, given the fact the Indianapolis-area currently has two concert venues: Farm Bureau Insurance Lawn at White River State Park and the Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville, Ind.
“I don’t know, economically, how three outdoor facilities can exist in a market the size of Indianapolis,” editor-in-chief of Pollstar, a concert industry trade publication, Gary Bongiovanni told The Indianapolis Star.
Purchased by REI Investments from RACER Trust, a “Michigan-based entity that disposes of old GM industrial sites,” the investment firm’s alternative is “to build apartments, restaurants and retail shops” on the old GM stamping facility’s site if it can’t find the financing and possible partners to make the amphitheater a reality.
Whatever REI ultimately chooses to build on the site, it will have to share space with a “consolidated jail and criminal justice facility.” The Star reports that “RACER Trust made the sale to REI contingent on it agreeing to sell half the site to the city for the justice center.”
GM closed the stamping facility and transferred it to RACER Trust as part of its bankruptcy in 2009. “The trust is mandated to sell to new owners who’ll maximize the public benefit through redevelopment,” RACER Trust redevelopment manager Bruce Rasher told the Star.
Comment
Considering that this plant was operational until mid-2011, how did it get classified as part of old GM assets?