From the December 31, 1965 issue of the Windsor Star
An aerial photograph of the brand spanking new GM Trim Plant on Lauzon Road. Now as our manufacturing might decreases, a new arena is set to open in the field behind the plant, and this plant, with its great modern office building is threatened with demolition.
The Lear sign, still sits out on the road advertising what was.
A view of the front entrance, with the massive 1960’s era canopy over the front door.
A couple of storage tanks on the site, complete with the Lear Canada Logo.
When I took these photos a few months ago, the plant had only been closed since the summer, but nature was already starting to reclaim the land through the cracks in the roadway.
A view back looking north from the parking area towards the offices.
This building is a great example of the architecture of the era, and when it comes to the most under appreciated buildings, in my opinion it’s usually the industrial ones that get no love.
When this plant is wiped off the face off the earth, this office will be looked back upon as a great loss. It might not happen next year or the year after that, but 20 or 30 years from now there will be some regret.
I worked for lear during 2007. towards the end, the entire second floor was empty except for the it department. the sign out front has recently disappeared. if you notice, the picture with the canopy, the granite floor slabs are all gone. they disappeared one weekend right near the end. the front office, it has some really nasty aluminum walls and most of the lights didnt work. oh well. was fun working there and the people were pretty good
How incredibly sad…
“Now main streets whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there aint nobody wants to come down here no more
Theyre closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they aint coming back to
Your hometown, your hometown, your hometown, your hometown”
— Springsteen, My Hometown”
Sometimes songs just really nail it.
People used to say that when General Motors catches a cold Canada will get pneumonia, or something like that. Can’t believe a company that was such a big part of our national identity is now on the brink of collapse. I wonder how many Canadians learned to drive behind the wheel of their parents’ Chevy, Pontiac, Oldsmobile or Buick.
Notice that a manufacturing plant built as late as the 1960’s was built adjacent to a major railway and had its own spurs going right into the plant.
Lately, Billy Joel’s Allentown has been going through my head.
Is the 1965 version the same layout as today? It looks bigger from the 1965 aerial for some reason. What made it the most modern of its type in the world in 1965?
It’s too bad they couldn’t turn it into a St. Clair satellite campus or some other community college. The building looks like it has a lot of potential still for re-use. Did the city get it for back taxes or who now owns it?
“east side location with much promise for more new industrial development” Yeah, right. GM wanted out of the parts business in a big way, Lear was only temporary until the work moved to Mexico or China or wherever. The sooner Windsor transitions from industrial to service and tourism, along with a retirement enclave, the better. There’s no future for manufacturing in these parts – see Britain (once a major industrial nation). I hope it isn’t converted into a satellite campus, we don’t need a college on every corner. It could be a good location for mixed office and townhomes. I would suggest a train station, but with passenger traffic going to the southern line, not much future there.
I agree with JB. Windsor needs to transition away from manufacturing now. While an interesting building, there is virtually no potential that this could be used for anything other than industrial. It makes a good mixed use site for residential / commercial. I believe that the owners were going to start demolition this fall?
jb and edward
Why would you rather have low wage service and tourism jobs then manufacturing?. This building could of been used for a warehouse even
Lear could be a building to house emerging industry. We have skilled work teams such as GM transmission
that will be dismantled and dispersed if we don’t have something for them. A documentary on the cbc this week talked about the success of wind turbine production and use in Germany. it is possible to produce these products in Canada. We need government to invest in the retraining and construction necessary to put these people to work in Windsor.There is the possibility that government will be throwing a lot of money around to prevent a deflationary collapse. I think the people of windsor have the history that tells us that we have the ways and means to demand action from government.
I’m surprised the province didn’t sneak attack the city, buy up this Lear plant and announce they’re going to build the jail there.
The caption from the first picture is quite sad “holds promise of new industrial development”, in the 43 years since the plant was opened what other “industrial” use is there around that location? We do need the manufacturing jobs in this city that pay well, but the quicker we realize (as everybody is starting to say) that we need to go after high-tech companies, even tourism or a retirement city for people in Canada than the better this economy would be. The proof is in that newspaper photo, in 43 years no other industrial development took place in that area, let alone in the rest of Windsor, we had areas of the city zoned for industrial use that have no been sold and become commercial or future residential neighborhoods. We’ve been living in the past way too long, don’t look back because we have to move forward.
Wrong, Randolph- the recently demolished Pillette assembly plant was built in 1974-75 and I’m not sure of it’s age but isn’t Essex Aluminum a more recent plant too? In addition, it’s just down the road on Lauzon Parkway from the Lear plant.
The truth is, we need to keep what we have left in this city as far as manufactruing goes. We’ve lost way too much over the past several years and it’s hitting this city hard. Investment isn’t and won’t come into the city at the same fast pace are we are losing. The best scenario is that we keep what we have, attract high tech companies and grow in other areas all at the same time.
I’m glad this plant made the cut for posting here. Awhile back I was admiring the office block — it really is a great looking building with the symmetry and vertical glazing. It seems to me a few of the GM facilities in the Detroit-area have very similar looking office blocks–Livonia comes to mind, though I may have my geography off.
Though it was not located in Windsor, the former Ford of Canada HQ in Oakville (built when the company moved out of Windsor) was a fantastic looking building, that also met with demolition in the recent past.
It’s wierd to witness both the start and end of such developments in one lifetime. Solid brick and mortar developments that once represented the most powerful sector in North America. This place, the Pillette Van Plant, the GM-Trans H-Building, Nemak and soon the balance of GM Trans. If this isn’t the tell-tale sign that the demise of Windsor as the Automotive Capital of Canada is eminant, I don’t know what is. The U.S. Congress and Senate along with our Federal and Provincial governments have to look at the current Aid Package Proposal to the Big Three as more than a tradeable spreadsheet correction. These were the same companies which stood by their government in the early 1940’s. Dropped all that they were doing to pound out thousands of military vehicles and aircraft to support the North American war requirements. If this was to ever happen again who would the government turn to? Toyota, Hyundai, Daimler, VW? Will these be are future industrial bones?
Paul, I’m not suggesting just low wage or tourism jobs. Windsor needs massive economic diversification and manufacturing is on the way out. Windsor cannot stop this trend. The fact is that wage levels and prosperity are higher in economically diverse cities like London, Ottawa, Kingston and Kitchener-Waterloo. It is the manufacturing and blue collar cities like Windsor, Sudbury, Hamilton and Cornwall that are hurting. Over the past 50 years there has been a huge economic transition way fron manufacturing to services. It is a mistaken belief that service sector or white collar jobs are low paying (ie. a Chrysler worker could not even afford to live anywhere in Toronto). London’s largest employer is the London Health Sciences Centre while Windsor’s is Chrysler. I would debate with anyone that London is better off.
If not a community college or warehouse, how about a convention centre? How many square feet is this? Cobo Hall is 2.3 million square feet just across the river and it works. It would be world class. I remember reading a couple months ago that they were planning on expanding it.
I did a tour of the casino when they opened the new section and their salespeople said they were booked solid at their convention centre for the two years. There’s other businesses that could work nicely there being its next to a railroad and use that space like a brewery or a distillery, but I guess now that they have an arena next door that they’d be complaining about the smell. So many re-adaptive uses for it to avoid demolition, but the city would rather see it demo’d without even trying to market it to someone for re-use. What a shame. I guess wasting millions of tax dollars on bridge lawsuits or demo’ing and replacing old useful buildings for junk is tax dollars better spent…
Do you know why Communism was such a spectacular failure JB? It was because the Communist countries produced nothing of value, refused to modernize old and inefficient industries and relied on huge foreign loans to keep the government afloat. Kinda sounds like what’s happening in America, doesn’t it? Nations need a manufacturing base to survive hard economic times and without a healthy manufacturing base we’ll end up falling apart like the Soviet Union.
I believe that this building is now owned by Farhi Holdings Corporation of London http://www.fhc.ca . Their intention is to demolish the plant for mixed use. From the looks of the properties they own (check out their website) they do an excellent job of preservation and re-use of historic buildings.
Sigh…
David, that is going to be our “new” downtown. It is next to the new, funky arena (if we can have a funky bus termainl, why not a funky arena?).
I just wonder how much Windsor is going to pay for it?
Most cities welcome new development, not Whinesor. It’s a vacant auto plant from the 60s for crying out loud. We can either get rid of eyesores like this and rebuild as a normal (non-industrial) city and try to attract diversified business and industry or we can whine about the once mighty auto industry. I, for one, do not like to look at vacant factories. This would never be designated as a heritage building and if you don’t own it, and the City of Windsor does not either, you have no right to plan for it’s future. Fight to save buildings like the Seagrave Building that have potential for heritage designation and opportunities for re-use.
I have non problem with development as long as it is smart and doesn’t take away from existing areas. Thus far, this will only help to create a larger hole in our current downtown.
IT`S OVER !!!! GET OVER IT !!!!!!
Make no mistake, this deal was inked and winked-on a long time ago.
Only about one week after Lear sold the property to Farhi Holdings, (that’s about two years before the plant actually closed and not coincindentally immediately after the Town of Tecumseh announced that it had set a deal for its ill-fated “Ice Park”), our our forthright mayor “Fast Eddy” (not to suggest that he might be “dirty”) came hand-in-hand with the Farhi brothers on a supposed “tour” of the facility. At that time, they surprisingly went directly to the back end of the plant without any tour of the contemporaneous, substantial production operations in effect and climbed the back stairs to the roof! Hmm, .. to the roof. There, they collectively looked east, out over the vast tract of land disused by Lear. Lear subsequently leased-back only the portion of the facility, from Farhi Holdings, that it needed to finish its contractual production obligations to its customers.
And in parallel with all the denials, nobody was told squat about what was taking place for those years.
Geesh! I understand it’s over Drew, but give us a break. I think everyone’s over it. We’d just like the truth to be told. I also understand that you Edward, wouldn’t like the “look” of vacant factories. Aesthetics are so important to sensitivities. I wonder if it would matter to you that any such facility was a strong economic engine to the local and regional economy. That it had provided viable employment/taxes/pensions/benefits to real people? It is easy to assume that you would have the same visual opinion of the vacant storefronts and businesses that are coming soon … beyond those already here. I can also assume that your definition of a “normal (non-industrial) city” would mean a place with a whole lot of minimum wage employers and a few slick-dressed financial advisors … who can still afford the morning Tim Horton’s coffee on the way in to “work”, as long as the businesses look pretty out front. What does “normal” mean? Doesn’t appearance have something to do with the regional economy and resources? What would you say about Alberta? Are her cities and towns abnormal by virtue of their dependance on the oil/gas industry?
Perhaps London would be a better city to suit your sensitivies.
AAH the good old days GENERAL MOTORS TRIM PLANT was a great place to work. Many wonderful people worked through the years there and built a good QUALITY product for the auto industry. I will miss all the history that building has to offer and great memories I have of working there for 25 years.
I see the death fences are up….can’t be toolong ’til the end