Boxwood Industrial Park, LLC, an affiliate of Harvey, Hanna & Associates, formally announced the pending acquisition of the former GM Assembly plant located at 801 Boxwood Road, near Newport.
Boxwood Industrial Park, LLC, an affiliate company of the Newport-based Harvey, Hanna will acquire the 142-acre site from Wanxiang America Inc., The site includes more than 3 million square feet of former automobile manufacturing space.
Built in 1946, the site is best known as the former General Motors Automobile Assembly plant until the plant closed in July 2009.
Plans will be announced in coming weeks as Harvey Hanna continues to formulate its plans for redevelopment the of the property.
“This is an exciting time for our community and for our company,” said E. Thomas Harvey, III, president of Harvey, Hanna. “We are confident our vision for this site will create thousands of jobs during construction and thousands more well-paying permanent jobs.”
Harvey, Hanna noted that it has experience in the redevelopment of former industrial sites, including the Twin Spans Business Park in New Castle.
Similar in scale to the GM Boxwood facility, Twin Spans Business Park is a 135-acre and 2 million square feet Class A commercial warehouse, distribution and office campus.
Formerly an manufacturing facility operated by Chicago Bridge & Iron, the Twin Spans campus is today 100 percent leased and employs more than 1,000 people.
“We were uniquely positioned to redevelop this site due to our decades of experience repositioning former manufacturing facilities in Delaware,” said Thomas J. Hanna, COO and managing director, “As a locally owned and operated family business, we are thrilled for the opportunity to return this facility to productive uses that bring in quality companies and quality jobs at livable wages.”
Harvey, Hanna & Associates is a full service commercial real estate redevelopment company with 3.5 million square feet of prime location commercial, retail, hotel and industrial real estate in Delaware.
Wanxiang ended up with the Boxwood site after buying up assets of Fisker out of Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. Fisker planned to build a mid-sized hybrid car at the site.
However, the federal loan for the project was suspended and work on the site was halted. Delaware is believed to have lost nearly $20 million in state assistance.
It had been widely reported that Harvey, Hanna was the buyer of the property. The closing of the transaction is expected in coming weeks.
