A few aerial photos of the Kildare Road factory prior to the giant renovation in 1982.
In these old photos you can clearly see the separate buildings. The building on the far right served for many years (1950’s though 1980’s) as Transit Windsor’s Kildare Road garage.
Old saw tooth roofed buildings, along with the old water tower.
After the expansion and renovation… The same as it looks today.
My favourite shot from the batch is this one of the old office building on the east west
(d’oh!) side of Walker at Seminole. Too bad that one didn’t make it.
Have a safe Civic Holiday weekend everyone. See you back here Monday.
Once this plant closes next June, this huge site has great potential for new urban neighbourhood development (if our city has the vision). I’m thinking of the old Greenwood Raceway or Massey Ferguson sites in Toronto. They have taken brownfield sites and created dynamic, diverse, mixed use urban neighbourhoods.
I think with the North American International Auto Show threatening to pull out of Detroit because of Cobo Hall, this entire complex should be transformed into a convention centre and be used to lure the auto show here in Windsor.
Hahaha. I just fell out of my seat laughing at Ed’s comment. It’ll most likely be levelled like Lear and the Ford Casting Plant.
The $300million allocated for the Cobo Hall renovation and 167K sq. ft expansion of the convention center into Cobo Arena has already been approved. Illitch didn’t renew his lease. The threat of NAIAS pulling out of Detroit is long gone.
David, of course it will be levelled, and it should be. There is absolutely no use for that building in this century. What I am suggesting is a positive urban residential/commercial neighbourhood to replace it. It has an ideal site between Old Walkerville and South Walkerville. Instead of weeping over closed factories, we need to bring the city forward and weave this area into the fabric of the community. This type of thing is being done pretty much everywhere but Windsor. We need some vision in this city.
It can’t be levelled because The Windsor Expo Centre is in the other side of the building. The guy who runs it has suggested he might end up buying the other half of the building and convert it to a auto meusum.
I remember reading an article about the Windsor Expo Centre and that the lease was set to run out in 2010 I believe. As a convention centre, with significant renovations and improvements, this would be an asset for Windsor. But, without quicker action and decision making this plant will likely remain vacant for years and join the ranks of the old Woolco/Wal-Mart building on Lauzon, Home Depot on Howard Ave. as empty eyesores.
An auto museum? We’ve already got one in heritage village.
There’s no market for another large convention centre in this area.
The only real use I could think of for a building this size would be a film production studio like they did with the former GM Truck plant in Pontiac. But, that would require the Ontario gov’t spending a fortune on tax credits and other incentives like the State of Michigan to lure an outfit from Hollywood and Toronto would be screaming bloody murder that the Ontario government didn’t keep those film dollars in Toronto.
Clint Eastwood where are you when we need you?
Last I heard, Clint was in Grosse Point, Michigan, where he did his last movie.
71 major motion pictures approved for the upcoming and past year for the greater Detroit area, yet no one wants to take advantage of some kind of Windsor-Detroit movie making partnership because Toronto squaked and they get what they want like always… Virtually every major actor has been filmed in Metro Detroit now. Al Pacino is in metro Detroit being filmed for a movie where he’s playing the role of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, yet Windsor could never be considered a film making town. Or, maybe it’s our mayor who thinks the idea of the movie making boom spreading over to Windsor from Detroit is a joke…
Andrew…
In the bottom centre portion of your second photo there is a section of old concrete that seems to fade into the railway land. With the history of that part of Walker Rd. (the old Seagrave factory was right up the street to mention only one) was there any significant business operating there at the south-west corner of Ottawa St. and Walker Rd.? Wyeth Pharmacutical operated out of the building that is occupied by the current market but I don’t think the property extended as far as that concrete
Wait, wait – where are the calls to preserve this important part of our heritage? How will generations of the future ever know that in Windsor, they used to “make” things, instead of simply pushing paper or bits and bytes around.
I can see it now – internationalmetropolis.com, August 2110 – here are some photos of the old GM transmission plant – too bad they tore it down so we couldn’t have this historical building around anymore.
On the plus side, the new space elevator/Tim Hortons will be open in less than a month. The casino is giving away a free week on the moon – don’t forget to enter the contest – just think about the casino and the nearest mental scanner will register your entry.
Well the Comment earlier in this post about the Blob on the eastside of the old Woolco/Walmart building may be vacant and stay, is going out the door now, as when I drove pass the building on Saturday night. There was some wrecking equipment on the side wall next to the Automotive Bays with a huge hole in the building and lots of junk outside.
As for the GM Trans Plant, the guys I have talked to said that GM plans to Idle the plant and may renovate the plant (still cheaper then clean up the property from all the chemicals in the Soil) and make something for the new ECO Cars. Right now Detroit is getting a Battery Factory, and also a few other items, and talks were in the works to have another future closed factory get restored for other parts for the new Volt and other cars like that.
Bruce – I’m not sure what was there…
Why not use the old GM trim plant to make locomotives, hybrid buses or light rail trains?
The Gm trim plant has been demolished
this was a direct attack on organized labor and it isn’t done yet,
almost , but not yet. Free trade was a great idea By Brian Bullroney and his PC’s
Great idea wasn’t it?.
where are all the politicians now,? What a bunch of liars,
and how stupid were we to think we could ever compete with slaves.
from other countries who worked for I/10th of what we made with no benefits or pensions.
our government should be ashamed of what they did to Canada.
see you at Wal-Mart brothers and sisters.
Mick, the reference to Walmart reminds me of an interview done by one of the reporters of Time Magazine with Kid Rock at Commerica Park and when asking about the 30% unemployment in Detroit he used the analogy of Walmart. Walmart was founded by a guy who started one store. He offered what people wanted, his chain grew internationally and he became a billionaire. He then added that there are lots of people out there who spend $100K to customize a car and do it in California or Florida instead of sending it to Detroit. Detroit could be known as the customizing capital of the US. Same with Windsor. We could be the customizing capital of Canada. Yet, the Motor cities prefer to build what people don’t want and then complain about their wages. If you think that you’ll be competing with slaves instead of finding ways not to then you really are stupid. And there’s still lots of people who’ll be spending $100K to customize their cars in California and Florida, not China or India. You are to blame. Take some responsibility. Build what people want. Use what you learned working in the autosector as a stepping stone to work somewhere else or even be your own boss instead of playing the poor me victim role all the time.
David,
I am one of the people who will be out of a job when this plant closes. What you fail to realize is what jobs like these, unionized or not, contribute to our economy. On this very website, try and research all the other factories that have closed, try and think about the thousands upon thousands of people and families that had the fortune of having a job where you could afford to raise a family, put food on the table, drive a car and send your kids to school. Most people who work in those third world countries, or at Walmart for that matter, can barely afford to house and feed themselves. Somehow that’s okay?
As for the car companies, they are in fact building vehicles that people want. Although GM has lost tremendous market share, they still are the number 1 in vehicle sales in North America, so I question where that statement came from. I also wonder if you are you one of those people who narrow mindedly buy foreign because of preconceived notion about quality??
Customizing cars??? What is that all about. How many people do you think that will employ. How much customizing will employees of Walmart, temp agencies or any minimum wage workers do, let alone how many of those workers can afford to own a car to begin with.
The problem is deeper than what car people chose to buy, it’s manufacturing jobs in general. What you need to realize is that there are two things happening as we speak. First, there is reduction of our standard of living happening. It’s slow but inevitable. The other thing that is happening is the gap between the rich and the poor is growing. My 20 year old son has a job as a casual worker (I won’t name the company)but it’s a highly skilled job; and he makes $17.00. That job is considered good by today’s standards.
What is wrong with making 25 or 30 dollars an hour? What is wrong with having good benefits or a pension program? What is wrong with being able to buy a house, take your family on a vacation or simply put them through school? Somehow wanting those things has become “greedy” and somehow wanting these things has become the reason we are losing these jobs to third world countries. WAKE UP EVERYONE.
We have lost touch with the human factor. It used to be important that people had a good life. Somehow the profits of the big corporations’ or the compensation packages of the very wealthy are acceptable and drive the decisions of the day. Our lifetimes will be witness to the degradation of middle class. I only hope that our children see it come back. Somehow we need to get to where the standards of how people are treated are as important as the price you pay for a product. Where the measurement of how “Green” a product includes how much damage it did to the earth in manufacturing and how much energy the product truly wasted from beginning to delivery to your door. We (North Americans) can compete with anyone in the world as long as the playing field is the same. If China had to pay their workers a decent standard of living or comply with strict environmental laws and use a currency that is uncontrolled as we do, we can beat them hands down. We, North Americans, still have some power and influence. If we “fixed” our trading policies so that trade is fair, we could create an environment that encouraged companies to build here like they did before. Maybe some dollar stores would close and maybe workers would become more important and maybe Wal-Mart might have to pay a little more, not because of a Union, but because they need to keep their workers happy. Imagine that!
To Dave: You’re wrong. And, there’s nothing wrong with making $25-$30 an hour. I never said it was. My point is that GM doesn’t build cars people want and that’s why they are in the mess they are in. Yesterday, I drove 15 minutes. I drove past 40 Mercedes, a dozen BMWs and half a dozen Porsches. All cars made in Germany that cost more than GM cars with wages higher than your quoted $25-30 an hour. How come Mercedes isn’t in the same mess as GM? Many millions of Mercedes are sold each year. These are cars that are sold all over the world that are made in higher wage Germany. These are cars people want. We are not only losing jobs to lower wage countries but also to higher wage countries.
How many North American made GMs are sold in Europe or even outside of North America for that matter? GM used to make their cars in Europe under the Opel brand before Magna bought them out. Why weren’t they exporting their cars from North America? European car makers are exporting their cars here. What are foreign car makers in higher wage countries doing right and what are we doing wrong? Think about it. Wages are relative to consumer demand for a particular product. We are just not building what people want on an international level and that’s why these local companies are going under. If you want to be paid $25-$30 an hour, do something that the market will pay you $25-$30 for, not something the market will only pay $17 an hour for, so YOU WAKE UP. If you can only make $17 an hour, that’s your problem that you alone have to figure out how to resolve and if you use your head, you can. I explained how earlier.
Very well said Dave (not David). I believe that car companies shot themselves in the foot by closing down their plants. By trying to save money by cutting staff they also got rid of the very same people who bought their product which is really what kicked them in the guts. By laying off or closing plants they also created a great deal of animosity for these companies by those laid off workers’ families. So, if dad loses his job at GM, my brother and I and his kids and their kids will never buy a GM car again. Now think about that times 3,000 or 35,000 in Flint, or many many thousands in Windsor and countless other cities that were basically expanded by the people working for the auto companies.
It’s sad to see this city crumbling around us as it gets hollowed out and sold out from under our feet, but we can all thank the people at the top of these car companies for running them like shoe companies or ruler factories. People are loyal to car brands, entire families will buy the same brand for generations and that is not the case for most products we use. However their loyalty will run cold if they cant afford to buy your cars after you took their jobs away just to save a few short term dollars.
The way to expand the auto industry is to simply build more factories and hire more workers. That way you have a constant customer base. Also, the auto companies, especially Government Motors should build other things than cars, perhaps wind turbines, water turbines, buses, trains, bicycles etc… Having a middle class is important for everyone, no matter what kind of car you drive.
David,
I rarely engage in a debate with a true right-winger. They typically have a better-than-everyone attitude and basically say too bad for the schmuck that does have it as good as them but I think you might be coming around. Your example is spot on. Germany, like most other countries feel their auto industry is extremely important. They put together an automotive “loan” package totaling over 600 billion dollars as a result of the greed driven worldwide market collapse. Volkswagen was the first automaker to tap into it. Beyond that, the debate they are having right now about the elimination of tariffs. European tariffs are at 10% for cars and light commercial vehicles, at 22% for trucks and 16% for busses. The debate is around why eliminate these tariffs when Asian countries have as much as 100% tariffs and extremely prohibitive rules to “certify” imported cars. They are right!!! Guess what, tariffs help to encourage domestic manufacturing, just like we had when the auto pact was in effect. We completely eliminated ours. Duh!!!
So you have an old manufacturing base predominantly in North America, which was built in times where our governments were actively involved in developing solid industries. In the midst of downsizing, suddenly, they get the rug pulled out from under them (and everyone else- even the mighty Toyota took a 5 billion dollar loan from Japan). That is what caused the collapse. It would have been nice if they were more financially nimble but it takes a long time to turn a big ship, and yes they made some mistakes….no shit. But there are some great cars out there right now for those who are not too narrow-minded to see that.
By the way, where are you driving around?? BMW and Mercedes (Daimler) each have 2.3 % market share. Volkswagen has 2.7%. GM has 19% Toyota 15%, Ford 14% and Chrysler 12%. Oh yeah, probably driving around and around your gated community where you can admire everyone else’s imported vehicles and houses bought with bonuses corporate bonuses.
So anyway, thanks for bringing up Germany in our “debate”. That country as well as most others, make decisions that protect their industries as opposed to just the profits of their executives. There really might be hope for you yet!!
What sad news.
Every time I visit Windsor, it looks more and more beat up. I grew up on Drouillard Road, for crying out loud. And I’ve never seen it look more dismal than it does today.
Isn’t amazing that Obama, a Democrat and supposed friend of unions, is elected and says, close plants, close dealerships, cut jobs and giveaway even more of your tiny marketshare, and we’ll bail you out?
And the unions, now, are in charge of the pensions? Paying for more and more retirees with contributions from less and less workers? That’s going to blow up in the face of the unions, obviously. Probably about the same time lower-payed workers in the new, two-tiered workforce looks at the higher-paid workers, with the easier factory jobs, and says, screw this. We’re quitting the union.
The union worker and the high-paid, low-skill worker are on the endangered species list.
it will be a shopping centre or a subdivision. gm is just waiting for top buck. i worked there. no more gm in windsor. a lot of property with a lot of potential. a museum west of walker rd. give me a break from laughing. yeah that will bring in the tourists. im being sarcastic.