F/S 1927 AMC $500

[Carfreak]

Bids start at $500 for AMC headquarters in tax sale

Want to buy the onetime headquarters of American Motors Corp.? Bidding starts at $500.

The 1.4-million square foot facility on Plymouth Road near Schaefer is among the 25,500 properties up for sale during the second round of the Wayne County tax foreclosure auction that began Tuesday.

One catch: The winner of the auction also will have to pay the building's summer tax bill of $160,631.

The massive complex was a hub of Detroit innovation for more than eight decades, but became a dumping ground in just three years, according to a 2013 Detroit News article that highlighted its plight.

As recently as 2009, more than 1,000 Chrysler employees worked at the site designing Jeep Grand Cherokees and Dodge Durangos. The complex, which opened in 1927, has been the home of Kelvinator, a refrigerator manufacturer, and American Motors.

Bidding started Tuesday and runs through Oct. 22. Buyers can still register until Thursday. About 23,000 of the properties are in Detroit.

In 2013, neighbors worried the complex's most recent owner a scrap hauler was dismantling the building and turning it into a dumping ground. The owner, Terry Williams, told The News he planned to transform the complex into a home for autistic children and that he was storing clean fill-dirt on the property.
graphic

Later that year, Williams was sentenced in Macomb County to two to 15 years in prison for failing to return a fork lift he rented from a Warren company and writing a bad check for more than $500.

Williams acquired the property from another owner who bought it during Chrysler Group's LLC bankruptcy.

[Gary]

How about converting it into a mental hospital for Obama voters?

Gary

[Russ]

You'd need the sears tower for that.

[Fins]

And that's even in Chicago where the putz was in charge.

[Tailfin Joe]

 Who ever think that the Motor city would be selling a building for 500.00 ? The AMC club needs to buy it !

[Otto Skorzeny]

AMC.  Is that even a real thing?

[Fins]

Not anymore. My pick-up has parts in it from all over the world. Sound system, Japan, transmission, Germany, rear end, Austria, tires, Canada.     But it's an American truck, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[Carfreak]

SOLD!!!!  






$600*


* plus $160k current year taxes

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2015/10/20/former-american-motors-corp-site-sells-six-hundred/74285862/

[Otto Skorzeny]

How can a single year property tax bill on a vacant building be $160,000?  That must include many years' back taxes.

It says "summer tax bill of $160K"  WTF?

How is an empty building going to generate enough income to pay that kind of tax bill, let alone earn a profit for its owner?   As a home for autistic children?  I don't think so.

I think the new owner figures he can use the site as a dumping ground (as has been cited) and then bail out, allowing the city to foreclose again without collecting a penny in taxes.

New owner pays $600, carts off thousands of dollars worth of scrap metal, dumps huge amounts of fill dirt and rubble  or whatever for free (saving thousands in land fill fees) and then stiffs the city for the tax bill.

City is then left with a run down dump with even more of a mess to clean up and still has uncollected taxes on the place.