A forgotten piece of General Motors history may be up for a new lease on life after sitting vacant for years. Local news affiliate KJZZ reports the old, Phoenix, Arizona-based GM testing lab may soon be up for being repurposed as a different kind of lab.
“Because it’s boarded up and you can’t see there are these fabulous glass blocks that are around most of the building,” said Michelle Dodds, historic preservation officer for the city of Phoenix. “It’s a fabulous building.”
She recently toured the building, which was opened in 1937, ahead of a developer who has his eye on the structure.
“He’s hoping to do like a culinary school featuring various cultures and have it be sort of an incubator space, so it’s going from being like a test lab for General Motors to kind of like a test kitchen,” she explained.
The GM testing lab was once considered a modern marvel and came with a hefty investment into the Phoenix area. An article published at the time of construction stated Phoenix was “selected from all other cities in the nation for the $100,000 modern test laboratory.”
Although GM gave up on the Phoenix lab, it never gave up on Arizona. The state remains home to the Arizona IT Innovation Center and a set of proving grounds for GM trucks and SUVs.
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