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Demolition Begins At Former GM Janesville Plant

It’s the end of an era. Demolition has officially begun at the former General Motors Janesville, Wisconsin, assembly plant.

Commercial Development Company announced demolition will likely take 12 to 18 months as crews work to tear down 4.8 million square feet of retired manufacturing space. Ahead of demolition, CDC worked to remove asbestos and perform environmental remediation.

CDC does not have a buyer for the property just yet, but the company has worked with the local government and real estate entities to begin promoting the site. Locally, many believe there’s a major opportunity for a new company to fill the void GM left.

GM idled the facility in 2008 during the global financial crisis, the automaker’s bailout and Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The plant remained on standby for years until GM announced it will close the facility for good in 2015.

The Janesville plant produced a number of GM vehicles over decades of operation and lastly built SUVs. At its peak in the 1970s, the plant employed 7,000 local workers.

Former GM Authority staff writer.

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Comments

  1. “Janesville: An American Story” by Amy Goldstein is an excellent book. Chronicles how the closure of the GM plant affected the community. Highly recommended.

    Reply
    1. Any plant closure in the U.S. will affect the community and suppliers. This is why President Bush had to help GM survive the bankruptcy because a major shutdown could had affected hundreds of thousands of lives, thousands of small businesses, and probably billions of dollars. The stockholders took a hit but that cost the U.S. much less.

      And GM authority would be writing just about the history.

      Reply

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