The man leading the effort to clean up and dispose of General Motors’ vacant properties says more potential buyers are showing interest.
Elliot Laws is the Administrative Trustee of the RACER Trust. RACER stands for “Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response.” The trust was created during GM’s bankruptcy.
Laws says interest in the old GM plant sites is rising along with the economy.
“There’s a lot of cash out there for people to invest,” says Laws, “They’ve been holding onto trying to see what’s going to happen.”
Laws says businesses are showing interest in properties in Flint, Pontiac and Willow Run. Though Laws will only confirm serious interest in parts of the Buick City property in Flint.
Racer Trust officials held two public meetings in Flint yesterday with people living near former GM properties in Genesee County.
Trustee Elliot Laws says he understands neighbors’ impatience with the process of cleaning up and bringing in new development to the long-vacant GM properties.
“We’re impatient,” says Laws. “We would like it to happen as soon as it can as well. But I think they understand that this isn’t something that’s going to happen overnight.”
Several people at Tuesday’s public meeting expressed concern at the pace and direction of the hazardous material clean up on the sites. Many are also worried that they will be left out as the properties next door to their homes are developed after years and decades of standing vacant.
